Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Swedgeo, Stockholm, Sweden.
Integr Environ Assess Manag. 2020 Jan;16(1):128-139. doi: 10.1002/ieam.4223. Epub 2019 Dec 19.
Environmental management often aims at sustainability and at implementing goals such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Several of these goals rely upon healthy sediments, implying that contaminated sediments need to be addressed in environmental management. In Sweden, the SDGs and national environmental objectives are meant to be central in environmental management. However, in environmental risk assessment (ERA) for contaminated sediments, it is not clear to assessors or authorities in Sweden which goals to consider and how. In the present study, we explore which environmental goals ERAs of contaminated sediment should consider, according to representatives from Swedish regulatory and advisory authorities, and to what extent ERAs consider those goals in practice in Sweden. The identified goals indicated that protection of aquatic ecosystems and associated services is a main priority for the authorities. The ERAs analyzed showed that most identified goals were addressed, albeit not consistently. Furthermore, risk assessors seem to put less weight on ecological aspects than authorities do. This indicates that authorities need to stress the importance of environmental aspects and provide guidance on how to address them. Several environmental goals were found to be directly relevant to contaminated sediments and ERAs can contribute to their fulfillment, given that ERA is a basis for management decisions. However, practitioners need clearer guidance on which goals to address and how. Finally, there seems to be good potential for implementation of the SDGs in environmental management in Sweden, due to existing legislation based on sustainable development and well-anchored national environmental objectives that overlap with the SDGs. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2019;00:1-12. © 2019 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).
环境管理通常旨在实现可持续性，并实施联合国可持续发展目标 (SDGs) 等目标。其中一些目标依赖于健康的沉积物，这意味着需要在环境管理中解决受污染的沉积物问题。在瑞典，SDGs 和国家环境目标应成为环境管理的核心。然而，在受污染沉积物的环境风险评估 (ERA) 中，评估人员或瑞典当局并不清楚应考虑哪些目标以及如何考虑。在本研究中，我们根据瑞典监管和咨询当局的代表，探讨了 ERA 应考虑哪些环境目标，以及 ERA 在瑞典实践中在多大程度上考虑了这些目标。确定的目标表明，保护水生生态系统及其相关服务是当局的主要优先事项。分析的 ERA 表明，大多数确定的目标都得到了处理，尽管不是一致的。此外，风险评估人员似乎比当局更不重视生态方面。这表明当局需要强调环境方面的重要性，并提供如何解决这些问题的指导。发现一些环境目标与受污染的沉积物直接相关，并且只要 ERA 是管理决策的基础，它就可以为其实现做出贡献。然而，从业人员需要更明确的指导，了解应解决哪些目标以及如何解决。最后，由于基于可持续发展的现有立法以及与 SDGs 重叠的良好的国家环境目标，瑞典在环境管理中实施 SDGs 似乎具有良好的潜力。
