PARENT SESSION
Special Session - Landscape ecological modeling and ecological risk assessment: at the cross roads Chair(s): Cole, Marlene¹, Johnson, Alan ², Linkov, Igor¹, ¹ ICF Consulting, Lexington, MA² Clemson University, Clemson, SC
Wednesday, March 31, 2004 1:00 PM - 4:40 PM Apollo Room 1

Landscape ecological modeling and ecological risk assessment are often used to support environmental decision making. While each operates within its own set of methods and tools, decision-making may benefit from the fusion of the two disciplines. This session will bring together researchers involved in landscape ecological analyses and spatially explicit ecological risk assessments. Ecological risk assessment, which has much regulatory utilization and guidance, provides a systematic approach to predict the likelihood of undesired effects arising from environmental stressors. Stressors may include chemical contaminants or other ecological disturbances (land use changes, altered hydrology, invasive species, genetically modified organisms, climate change, etc.). Landscape-level approaches could benefit ecological risk assessment in a number of ways, including: (1) explicit consideration of scale and spatial organization during problem formation, (2) accounting for spatial heterogeneity in exposure characterization, (3) extrapolation from small-scale studies to broad-scale effects, (4) selection of appropriate assessment and measurement endpoints, (5) spatial analysis of uncertainties, and (6) the use of maps or other spatial visualization techniques for risk communication. In turn, ecological risk assessment can benefit landscape ecology because: (1) it has an existing regulatory presence (and is often required), (2) its framework lends itself to addressing environmental questions, and (3) it provides direct application to environmental decision making.

Transboundary ecological risk assessment at a military installation using the RSim model. ^*EFROYMSON, REBECCA A. ¹, DALE, VIRGINIA H. ¹, ALDRIDGE, MATTHEW ², BERRY, MICHAEL W. ², GARTEN, CHARLES T. ¹, BASKARAN, LATHA M. ¹, CHANG, MICHAEL ³, WASHINGTON-ALLEN, ROBERT A. ¹, STEWART, CATHERINE ⁴ and OLSEN, LISA M. ¹, ¹ Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge, TN, USA² Department of Computer Science, Knoxville, TN, USA³ School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Atlanta, GA, USA⁴ U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventative Medicine, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, USA

ABSTRACT- Military installations are reservoirs of valued vegetation communities and populations of vertebrates. Numerous environmental stressors created by installations or outlying jurisdictions are regional in scale, and even the ecological effects of more localized stressors can cross installation boundaries. The U. S. General Accounting Office has identified several activities that "encroach" on military training, including compliance with endangered species legislation, application of the Clean Air Act to base-generated air pollution, the application of noise abatement rules to training and testing activities, and urban growth around military installations. Therefore, a regional-scale environmental simulation model would be useful as a planning and assessment tool for military installations and adjacent communities. The Regional Simulator (RSim) model is designed 1) to simulate land use changes instigated by urban development, road development and changes in military training activities; 2) to simulate resulting changes in air quality, water quality, soil nutrients, and noise; and 3) to simulate changes in vertebrate populations and their habitats. In its initial implementation, RSim is being designed to project land-use changes and impacts for the five counties in Georgia surrounding Fort Benning. Ecological thresholds for effects of nitrate in water, ozone in air, noise, road development, and habitat loss are presented, with an emphasis on red-cockaded woodpecker and gopher tortoise. Challenges for ecological risk assessment include the development of appropriate exposure-response models for various stressors and species and the prediction of effects associated with multiple stressors.

KEY WORDS: simulation model, ecological risk assessment, habitat disturbance, noise, military