Regional multi-compartment ecological risk assessment: Establishing cadmium pollution risk in the northern Bohai Rim,China

Ecological risk assessment (ERA) has been widely applied in characterizing the risk of chemicals to organisms and ecosystems. The paucity of toxicity data on local biota living in the different compartments of an ecosystem and the absence of a suitable methodology for multi-compartment spatial risk assessment at the regional scale has held back this field. The major objective of this study was to develop a methodology to quantify and distinguish the spatial distribution of risk to ecosystems at a regional scale. A framework for regional multi-compartment probabilistic ecological risk assessment (RMPERA) was constructed and corroborated using a bioassay of a local species. The risks from cadmium (Cd) pollution in river water, river sediment, coastal water, coastal surface sediment and soil in northern Bohai Rim were examined. The results indicated that the local organisms in soil, river, coastal water, and coastal sediment were affected by Cd. The greatest impacts from Cd were identified in the Tianjin and Huludao areas. The overall multi-compartment risk was 31.4% in the region. The methodology provides a new approach for regional multi-compartment ecological risk assessment.