Department of Environmental, Social and Spatial Change, Roskilde University, Denmark.
DTU Environment, Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark.
Sci Total Environ. 2016 Jan 15;541:784-794. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.09.112. Epub 2015 Oct 2.
Environmental risk assessment (ERA) is often considered as the most transparent, objective and reliable decision-making tool for informing the risk management of chemicals and nanomaterials. ERAs are based on the assumption that it is possible to provide accurate estimates of hazard and exposure and, subsequently, to quantify risk. In this paper we argue that since the quantification of risk is dominated by uncertainties, ERAs do not provide a transparent or an objective foundation for decision-making and they should therefore not be considered as a "holy grail" for informing risk management. We build this thesis on the analysis of two case studies (of nonylphenol and nanomaterials) as well as a historical analysis in which we address the scientific foundation for ERAs. The analyses show that ERAs do not properly address all aspects of actual risk, such as the mixture effect and the environmentally realistic risk from nanomaterials. Uncertainties have been recognised for decades, and assessment factors are used to compensate for the lack of realism in ERAs. The assessment factors' values were pragmatically determined, thus lowering the scientific accuracy of the ERAs. Furthermore, the default choice of standard assay for assessing a hazard might not always be the most biologically relevant, so we therefore argue that an ERA should be viewed as a pragmatic decision-making tool among several, and it should not have a special status for informing risk management. In relation to other relevant decision-making tools we discuss the use of chemical alternative assessments (CAAs) and the precautionary principle.
环境风险评估（ERA）通常被认为是告知化学品和纳米材料风险管理的最透明、客观和可靠的决策工具。ERA 基于这样一种假设，即有可能对危害和暴露进行准确估计，并随后对风险进行量化。在本文中，我们认为，由于风险的量化受到不确定性的支配，ERA 并没有为决策提供透明或客观的基础，因此不应被视为告知风险管理的“圣杯”。我们通过对两个案例研究（壬基酚和纳米材料）的分析以及历史分析来构建这一论点，在历史分析中，我们探讨了 ERA 的科学基础。分析表明，ERA 没有正确处理实际风险的所有方面，例如混合物效应和纳米材料的实际环境风险。几十年来，不确定性一直被人们所认识，评估因素被用来弥补 ERA 中缺乏现实性的问题。评估因素的值是根据实际情况确定的，从而降低了 ERA 的科学准确性。此外，用于评估危害的标准检测方法的默认选择可能并不总是最具生物学相关性的，因此我们认为，ERA 应该被视为几种决策工具中的一种实用决策工具，而不应在告知风险管理方面具有特殊地位。在与其他相关决策工具的关系方面，我们讨论了化学替代评估（CAA）和预防原则的使用。
