PARENT SESSION

4A - Integrated ecological and human health risk assessment
Poster Hall
8:30 AM - Monday, 28 April 2003
Chair: Van den Brink, P.J.¹, ¹
Co-chair: Webb, S.², ²

(MOP/172) Integration of Ecological and Human Health Risk Assessment: the Venice lagoon (Italy) as case study.

Marcomini, Antonio¹, Micheletti, Christian¹, Critto, Andrea¹, ¹ University Ca' Foscari of Venice, Venice, Italy

ABSTRACT- The lagoon of Venice is a complex, highly productive, ecosystem affected by anthropic activity, which may cause direct and indirect adverse effects to the environment and humans health; the appropriate management of this environment needs decisions protective for both human and environmental health. Efforts to integrate Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA) and the Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) are in progress worldwide especially on methodological issues. Particular attention is posed on the conceptual model in the Problem Formulation phase: humans and ecological resources should be examined within an ecological landscape perspective, allowing the identification of common assessment endpoints. According to this approach, we are undertaking the integration of HHRA and ERA for the case study on the lagoon of Venice. The Weight-of-Evidence approach and the Multi-source Human Health Risk Assessment (MHHRA) are the procedures most promising a suitable integration of HHRA and ERA. The ERA will be based on the results of experimental activities concerning exposure and effect quantification (e.g. micropollutants concentration in biotic and abiotic environmental media and biomarker, bioassay and toxicological tests conducted on benthic organisms). The MHHRA will focus especially on data concerning diet composition, such as fish and shellfish consumption, the pollutant concentrations in blood and in breast milk, the pollutant concentration in air, etc.. The application of this integrated approach will allow us to identify the main sources of risk for the lagoon ecosystem (i.e. which chemicals and areas of concern) and for the human health. Finally, the case study will be used to support the definition of risk-based ambient quality criteria/index, as result of a multicriteria analysis.

Key words: Multi-source Human Health Risk Assessment , Ecological Risk Assessment , Weight-of-Evidence approach , Lagoon of Venice