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Executive Summary
STANLEY I. AUERBACH
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
ALAN W. MAKI
Exxon Company, USA
ELLIS B. COWLING
North Carolina State University
The various chapters of this book were developed to illustrate the
current state of knowledge about ecological risks in Poland and the United
States. The scientists and engineers who prepared these chapters have
very diverse backgrounds in terrestrial and aquatic ecology, environmental
engineering, public administration, and economics. The authors of each
chapter were challenged to represent their particular disciplines and ex-
perience during both the Polish and U.S. portions of the joint workshops
sponsored by the Polish Academy of Sciences and the National Academy
of Sciences of the United States. Through these interactions, the partici-
pants made some useful progress in developing a conceptual framework for
science-based environmental policy which two of us (Auerbach and Maki)
have presented in Chapter 24.
Because of the great differences in current environmental conditions
in Poland and the United States, many of our workshop participants were
surprised to discover many similarities in the environmental management
goals and objectives in our two countries. The similarities were much
greater than the differences. For this reason, the approaches that are
needed in the future to ensure the conservation and wise use of natural
resources, and the protection and enhancement of ecological values should
also be similar.
Highlights from each major section and chapter of this book are
summarized in the paragraphs that follow.
OVERVIEW OF THE CHAPTERS
The book begins with an overview chapter by Cowling, Grodzinski, and
Breymeyer. These persons served as chairpersons for the workshops, both
14
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OVERVIEW
15
in Poland and the United States, and also as editors of the book itself. Their
opening chapter sets the stage for all other parts of the book. They describe
the importance of natural systems for human beings and then define what
is meant by ecosystems, ecological risks, ecological risk assessment, and
ecological risk management. They point up some interesting contrasts
and similarities between ecological goals and conditions in Poland and the
United States. The chapter ends with a statement of hope for a future in
which ecological risks are assessed and management with greater wisdom-
not only in Poland and the United States—but in many other countries of
the world as welt
Chapter 2 Is the Executive Summary of the book, which you are now
reading.
ECOLOGICAL MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS
Chapters 3 through 6 deal with the fundamental concepts of ecological
risk assessment and risk management. In Chapter 3, Russell proposes
that all questions of ecological impact need to be answered in the context
of human values both economic and aesthetic or existential. In this
context, the environment (including all terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems)
are sources of materials and aesthetic or recreational experiences which
contribute to the prosperity and quality of human life. In most societies,
ecosystems are regarded as public or private property which should be
managed for the benefit of humans rather than protected or conserved for
their own sake.
Analysis of ecological impacts needs to take into account two major
and differing social points of view concerning relations between human
beings and the rest of nature. One extreme view is that society is an
"interloper" and hence generally destructive to natural systems. The other,
ethnocentric viewpoint is that ecological systems and all they encompass
are factors of production and consumption in an economic sense and do
not have intrinsic value. Under the latter viewpoint, changes in ecosystems
are judged by their potential impact on the values and quality of human
life. In evaluating changes in ecosystems (and hence potential ecological
risk), one needs to take into account the dimensions of the problem (i.e.,
space involved), time (i.e., how much of the future needs to be taken into
account), which groups of people have the most to gain or lose, and how
differing perspectives should be considered in making social judgments or
establishing environmental, industrial, economic, or social policy.
In summary, ecological impacts, whether avoided or encouraged, have
both economic and social costs. In a human-centered value system, the
social dilemma centers around whether those costs are worth bearing.
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16
ECOLOGICAL H5~
In Chapter 4, Marek and Kassenberg deal with the relationships be-
tween social planning and environmental protection. Although this chapter
focuses on these issues in Poland, the concepts and ideas have much wider
applicability. Because of their inherent complexity, issues of environmental
protection should be addressed through a systems-analytic approach that
encompasses all the interactions and interdependencies among social needs
and requirements, economic activity, and environmental conditions. The
scale of analysis should be at the level of major socio-economic subsystems
that contain key social components and that have major environmental ~m-
plications. An example of such a subordinate part of our social-economic
system is the energy/environment complex. Research is needed in this (and
many other) areas to determine the nature and magnitude of direct or
indirect effects on humans and on ecosystems. In the environmental arena
these include:
ical cycles; and
identification and quantification of pollutants;
improvement and verification of pollution dispersion models;
understanding the fate of pollutants and their role in biogeochem-
· estimation of changes in the environment caused by emissions of
specific pollutants which act alone and in mixtures.
The concept of integrated planning provides an opportunity for formulat-
ing and implementing a socially acceptable strategy of development that
integrates and harmonizes social, economic, and ecological interests.
In Chapter 5, Kabala analyzes the economic factors involved in Poland's
contemporary environmental problems. He points out that the country is
in the grip of a dual crisis of economic reversal and ecological degradation
whose roots lie in the country's thirty-year policy of intense industrialization.
The intensive use of energy and material resources in an economy biased
toward heavy industry has come to produce ever smaller gains in material
benefits and has begun to supplant opportunities for environmentally benign
development. Efforts to modernize industry and invest in environmental
protection are hampered by the country's high foreign debt. Events since
the economic crisis of 1981 indicate that Poland will not be able to restore its
economic vitality nor modify the structure of its economy without external
assistance.. The social, political, and ecological stresses resulting from this
lack of internal capability are already manifest. A desirable first step in
correcting the dual problem is investment of new foreign capital in ways
that link financial considerations with environmental needs so that both
problems are addressed simultaneously.
In Chapter 6, Maki and Slimak discuss the role of ecological risk as-
sessment in environmental decision making. The formal assessment process
used by many industries and by the Environmental Protection Agency in
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OVERVIEW
17
the United States consists of two parallel lines of investigation designed
to relate observed effects to expected exposures. The evaluation includes
consideration of the following factors:
· chemical and physical properties of the substances in question;
how and in what quantities the material is to be used;
expected concentrations in the environment;
· environmental fate tests;
estimates of human and environmental exposure;
tests for human health effects;
tests for environmental effects;
· field monitoring and modeling;
· comparison of predicted concentrations and predicted effects; and
· decisions about the acceptability or unacceptability of the predicted
risks.
Although quantitative methods are available for assessment of some of
these factors, others require good judgment by industry and regulatory
leaders and by workers or citizens who may come in contact with the
substances in question.
HUMAN EFFECTS ON THE TERRESTRIAL ENVIRONMENT
Human effects on the terrestrial environment are discussed in Chapters
7-14. This section of the book begins with two chapters on concepts in
stress ecology. It includes four chapters on air pollution impacts and ends
with two chapters on environmental monitoring.
Concepts in Stress Ecology
In Chapter 7, Harwell, Harwell, Weinstein, and Kelley show how
understanding stress ecology is essential to effective assessment and man-
agement of ecological risk. This requires understanding of:
stress;
· how components of ecosystems are exposed to human-induced
· how these systems respond to stress; and
· how ecosystems recover once the stress is removed or ameliorated.
A scheme is required to separate important changes from less impor-
tant ones. This scheme ultimately must relate to aspects of ecosystems
that humans value and therefore are identified in social objectives or legal
regulations such as protection of endangered species, prevention of erosion
on construction sites, or maintenance of biological diversity. Ideally, these
social objectives or legal requirements should be formulated in ecologically
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18
ECOLOGICAL RISKS
meaningful terms (sometimes called ecological endpoints) which are de-
fined in terms of species, communities, or ecosystem processes. Changes
in carefully selected ecological endpoints constitute changes that must be
considered in ecological risk assessments. Harwell et al. argue that a com-
plete assessment process should also identify those specific components of
ecosystems (e.g., particular species, rates of particular processes, concen-
trations of particular chemicals) that need to be measured and monitored
in order to detect socially significant ecological changes caused by stress.
Such indicators of ecological effects, properly measured and compared
with non-stressed situations, can provide the basis for evaluating impacts
from human activities and, through application of ecological understand-
ing, can allow projections of future: impacts. In this way, ecological risk
assessment and management can be prospective and not just in reaction to
unacceptable environmental damage already done.
In Chapter 8, Breymeyer asserts that analysis of risks to ecosystems
should be predicated on understanding functional roles within the ecosys-
tems themselves. For this purpose, ecosystems should be understood in
terms of the amounts of organic matter produced and stored within the
system and the fluxes of energy and nutrients flowing through the sys-
.
tem. The sequence of basic processes of production, consumption, and
decomposition are the key functional attributes essential for maintaining
the stability and resiliency in ecosystems.
Ecosystem risk analysis can be facilitated by comparing the changes in
processes under differing amounts of or gradients of stress. Examples of
this approach include:
comparing the natural range of ecosystem processes (including
net primary productivity) and structures (e.g., above- and below-ground
biomass) as a function of precipitation, climate, etc.;
· comparing rates of decomposition as a function of latitude and
eve potranspiration;
· comparing the distribution of forests in relation to air pollution
loadings; and
· analysis of the biomass and composition of soil fauna as a function
of pollution stress.
Such comparative analyses of system-level attributes provide a sound con-
ceptual foundation for ecological risk assessments.
Air Pollution Impacts
The known effects of air pollution and the possible effects of acid
deposition on forests have evoked major public concern and a manyfold
increase in research in North America in recent years. Earlier research
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OVERVIEW
19
on the effects of sulfur dioxide and fluoride near major point sources of
these pollutants has given way to greatly increased research on the effects of
regionally dispersed secondary pollutants such as ozone and acid deposition.
In Chapter 9, Bartuska describes the development of regional case
studies of these effects in various parts of North America and the difficult
challenges of:
.
distinguishing the individual and combined effects of airborne pol-
lutant chemicals from those of natural stress factors such as water stress,
frost, and biotic pathogens; and
· determining effects on mature trees in whole landscapes rather
than just the response of individual seedlings to particular stress agents in
controlled chamber studies.
Improving this knowledge base is complicated by absence of visible
symptoms in many cases. Research which links physiological or nutritional
changes with growth appears to be a useful approach to evaluating air
pollution impacts on trees in the short term. Ultimately, however, we
need to know if the growth and productivity of whole forest ecosystems is
affected. Such effects only can be detected with long-term measurements.
The challenge will be to provide sufficient information to assist policy
makers in making short-term decisions while emphasizing that only through
long-term studies will uncertainty be reduced.
In Chapter 10, Godzik and Sienkiewicz describe recent changes in
the health of forest in Central Europe (Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the
German Democratic Republic). These changes have resulted in large
part from a combination of regional and point-source pollution problems.
Measurements of air pollutants in the forested areas of these countries
suggest that sulfur dioxide is the pollutant most likely responsible for
damage to forests. Other pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, fluoride, and
heavy metals may be contributing or interacting factors in some cases,
especially in local situations where large amounts of these substances are
emitted from local sources. Part of the difficulty in attributing injury to
forests to particular sources of pollution is that much of Central Europe
has been subjected to many different kinds and sources of air pollution
for a long time, and measurements of some pollutants such as ozone are
generally lacking. For this reason, it is difficult to relate specific injuries to
particular emission sources and insults.
In Chapter ll, Heck emphasizes that air pollution effects on agricul-
tural plants have been studied for more than a century. Damage or injury
from point sources were first recognized in the early 1900s. Research was
directed at recognizing injury symptoms and assessing losses in productiv-
ity in accordance with the severity of symptom development. Able 1 in
the chapter lists the airborne pollutant chemicals that have been shown
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20
ECOLOGICAL RISKS
to injure crops at some range of pollutant exposure expressed in terms
of concentration and time. Much current research has centered on the
impacts of ozone and acid precipitation on the growth and yield of crop
plants. Ozone has been proven to affect the growth, reproduction, quality,
and yield of many crops. Direct effects include changes in leaf surface
structure, leaching of nutrients, and changes in metabolic function or re-
productive processes. Conclusive evidence of injury in agricultural crops by
acid deposition is very limited.
In the United States, ozone has by far the greatest impact on crop
production. A number of regional and national crop-loss assessments have
been made since 1980. Regional estimates range from about $30 million
to $670 million per year. National estimates based on different groups
of crops, ranged from $1.2 to $3 billion annually. In both regional and
national estimates, corn and soybean were key components. A summary of
economic estimates suggests that current seasonal ozone concentrations are
causing an annual loss in excess of $3 billion in crop productivity. These
assessments require three factors:
· response function that links yield to exposure;
· an air quality data base to link response to exposure on a geographic
basis; and
.
a crop census.
Sources of uncertainty that should be taken into account in future assess-
ments include:
development of a data base that is more fully representative of
North America;
· effects of other biotic or abiotic stresses on crop response to air
pollutants; and
· better control and measurement of experimental variables.
in distinct contrast to the situation in the United States, Godzik
points out in Chapter 12 that air pollution effects on forests in Poland
are better understood than effects on agricultural crops. ~venty-seven
regions of Poland have been designated as Areas of Ecological Hazard
(AEH) because of environmental pollution. Agricultural land constitutes
about ten percent of these areas. The impacts of air pollution on a broad
regional scale is currently not known because a country-wide survey has
not been made. While investigations near sources of pollutants have shown
significant decreases in crop yields, these impacted areas also have high soil
concentrations of heavy metals which confound correlations with current
air pollution.
Because of their implications for human health, Godzik stresses that
yield reductions in crops are less important than the concentration of heavy
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OVERVIEW
21
metals and other contaminants in fruit and vegetables. At present it would
be very difficult to determine air pollution losses in crops on a country-wide
scale because of:
.
lack of methods for determining yield reductions in already- polluted
areas;
· lack of data on air pollutant concentrations on a regional scale;
· lack of experimental results on decreases in crops yield in regions
other than Upper Silesia (a heavily polluted region); and
lack of financial resources.
Monitoring Ecological Stresses and Effects
In Chapter 13, Molski and Dmuchowski describe techniques for moni-
toring the distribution and intensity of toxic elements in the forest vegetation
of Poland. They demonstrate that pine needles are useful bioindicators of
the geographic distribution of pollutant elements within the country and
show that the accumulation of particular elements within pine needles is a
useful index of pollution impacts on vegetation.
These studies were initiated in the Bialowieza Forest District (a rel-
atively clean area) and in the Panewnik Forest District near Katowice
(among the most polluted areas in Poland). Later, the study was broad-
ened to include a survey of all of Poland, using an 8 km by 8 km and as
the basis for a country-wide sampling scheme. Three hundred sites were
selected from the grid for sampling using a random number process. The
distribution patterns of the nine elements found in the needles were drawn
on country-wide maps using a computer mapping program. Of the nine
elements analyzed (sulfur, chromium, arsenic, iron, copper, zinc, cadmium,
lead, and nickel), sulfur was the most widespread and abundant contami-
nant, with concentrations often exceeding the amounts needed for normal
growth and development. Molski and Dmuchowski found that about 50
percent of the pine forest areas in Poland had sulfur contents exceeding
200 percent of the normal concentration, i.e., 1,200 ppm. Arsenic showed
a bimodal type of distribution reflecting both long range transport from
other countries and point-source contributions from industrial centers and
coal-fired electric generating stations within Poland. The other elements
also were limited in their quantities and distributions.
Molski and Dmuchowski point out that this type of research offers the
possibility of determining the kinds and extent of plant resources that are
being threatened by air pollution and identifying plant gene pools that may
warrant protection against extinction by air pollution.
In Chapter 14, Grodzinska has demonstrated the value of mosses in
national parks as long-term bioindicators of pollution in various parts of
Poland. Her data show that both geographical and temporal trends can
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22
ECOLOGICAL RISKS
be determined by these methods. For example, mosses collected from
national parks in the southern part of Poland are most contaminated with
various heavy metals (including cadmium, chromium, nickel, lead, and
zinc), whereas mosses collected in the least industrialized parts show much
lower contaminations. Similarly, trends in concentration of certain metals
in mosses over a series of years were well correlated with industrial activity
in large areas of Poland.
Grodzinska also provides a useful summary of the morphological and
physiological characteristics of mosses and the particular features of na-
tional parks that make them simple, rapid, inexpensive, and effective means
by which to monitor long-term trends in pollution loadings.
AGRICULTURAL AND FORESTRY IMPACTS
ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
In Chapters 15 and 16, Ryszkowski and Johnston give two remark-
ably contrasting views of the ecological impacts of agricultural and forestry
practices on the environment. In Chapter 15, Ryszkowski describes the
results of many decades of observation of landscapes in Poland containing
many different mixtures of crops, pastures, and both natural and managed
forests and grasslands growing on various types of soils, slopes, etc. He
also describes the effects of different sizes of fields, natural areas, methods
of cultivation, orientation of rows, and tillage, fertilization, irrigation, pes-
ticide, and harvesting practices. These results show that optimum choices
among all of these variables can make very large differences in the ef-
ficiency of agricultural and forest production in terms of yields, amount
of purchased inputs, amounts of irrigation water used, amounts of energy
needed, amounts of erosion, and both nutrient- and water-use efficiency.
This chapter gives new meaning to the term "appropriate technology" and
suggests that very large gains in efficiency of agricultural and forestry oper-
ations can be achieved through more holistic understanding of the land-use
and production-management systems of whole landscapes. The innovative
and familiar ecological guidelines for agriculture and silviculture contained
in this paper offer great potential to farmers and foresters in a wide range
of circumstances in many different countries throughout the world.
In Chapter 16, Johnston has summarized a series of ecological prob-
lems associated with agricultural development using some examples from
the United States. Special attention is given to the twin problems of soil
erosion and its impacts on both land quality and surface waters, and chem-
ical contamination with fertilizers and pesticides and their impacts on both
surface waters and groundwaters. Johnston distinguishes between on-site
effects in which the principal impacts are on the farm itself, and off-site
impacts in which the principal impacts are on down-stream water quality.
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OVERVIEW
23
Off-site impacts can include both short-distance and sometimes very long-
distance impacts. When the United States Congress passed the Federal
Water Pollution Control Act in 1972, the nation's waters were threatened
mainly by discharges from industry where it was fairly easy to identify a
particular point from which the discharges came, hence the term "point
sources." Five years later, the Soil and Water Resource Conservation Act of
1977 identified agriculture as the primary cause of changes in water quality
resulting from many diffuse points of discharge, hence the term "non-point
sources." Erosion and runoff from agricultural lands are leading sources of
non-point pollutants.
A major advance in understanding losses of topsoil due to erosion was
development of the universal soil loss equation (USLE) which expresses
soil losses in tons of topsoil per acre of land per year. Average losses
in the United States are about 4.8 tons per acre per year. Leaching of
water soluble pesticide and fertilizer nutrient chemicals from agricultural
lands is another serious problem in many parts of the United States. John-
ston describes the development and use of a series of practices designed
to decrease erosion and leaching of agricultural chemicals from farmland.
These include conservation tillage, contour farming, strip cropping, terrac-
ing, land leveling, and planting of trees on highly erodable land. Practices
aimed at decreasing chemical contamination of surface waters include de-
creased dependence on pesticides through increased use of crop rotations
and genetically resistant varieties of crops and adoption of integrated pest
management practices.
IMPACTS ON AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS
In Chapters 17 through 19, Hillbricht-ILkowska, Cooper, and Gromiec
provide a comparative analysis of pollution impacts on aquatic ecosystems
in Poland and the United States. Their collective experience shows that
water quality problems in Poland resemble those that were familiar over two
decades ago, before the United States undertook its massive water cleanup
and sewage treatment programs. Currently, the majority of the major
rivers in Poland have experienced serious degradation of water quality. If
experience in the United States is Apical, Poland can expect to discover it
has major groundwater contamination problems in addition to its present
surface-water problems. The monitoring and mitigation programs that will
be needed to redress these problems will require a much more intensive
investment in chemical methods for analysis and removal. High sulfur coal
is the major domestic source of energy in Poland and western currencies
are scarce. Because of this, Poland needs "soft energy" alternatives that are
much more labor intensive rather than those utilized in the United States.
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24
ECOLOGICAL RISKS
Based on the above assumptions, a number of recommendations are
made by these authors. Their key points include the following:
· River basin management units for water quality regulation should
be explored. The Tennessee Valley Authority might be considered as a
possible model for institutional arrangements. Experimental watersheds
in Poland must be utilized as prototype ecosystems to demonstrate the
suitability of alternative technologies and to train managers on site. Em-
phasis should be given to discharges from non-point sources of nutrients,
utilizing wetlands as pretreatment units, riparian vegetation strips as buffer
zones, and in sim ecological manipulations to encourage aquatic ecosystem
responses.
Water resources in Poland are very scarce, and high quality water
is even more limited. Legislatively based regulations and pricing policies
should be evaluated with the focus on water conservation and water qualifier
management.
· Appropriate technologies based on limited amounts of energy and
western currencies for remediation and control of water quality must be
identified. The infrastructure necessary to support these technologies must
be developed in Poland.
· Consumer products that reduce environmental loadings must be
encouraged. Biodegradable pesticides, low phosphate detergents, recyclable
materials, and other means should be considered in terms of costs, benefits,
and ecological risk assessments.
· Cooperative training programs between Poland and the United
States that integrate environmental engineering and ecological risk assess-
ment should be initiated for graduate students, postdoctoral students, and
college faculties.
· A major new initiative is needed for monitoring of nitrates and
other toxic substances in groundwater, including the detection and mea-
surement of organic substances through the use of advanced analytical
techniques such as gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy.
Poland must be considered a water-poor country, where conflicts over
water-resource use and development are on the rise. Water resources
are unevenly distributed among different parts of the country, and water
supplies now appear inadequate in quantity and quality at the same time
that demand is increasing in many regions of the country.
Lakes in Poland, especially in the northern region, are threatened by
eutrophication. Recent trends in chemical analyses suggest that phosphorus
loading from human sources is the primary cause. Unfortunately, there are
no data on heavy metals and synthetic organic substances to evaluate
the toxic chemical loadings to these lakes. The current lake-monitoring
program should be expanded to include toxic chemicals in addition to
, ~ ~
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OVERVIEW
25
cultural eutrophication. Eutrophication is likely to remain the chief- cause
of human disturbances of natural lakes and their environments even after
the elimination of the point-source nutrients. It is the main cause of
changes in the numerous small- and medium-sized natural lakes situated in
arable regions (i.e., the North European postglacial lakelands) that serve
as important tourist centers.
An integrated assessment and management system is needed to de-
termine impacts on lake waters at all trophic levels. It should be based
on the role of the watersheds in the supply and transport of nutrients, the
natural resistance of lakes to eutrophication, and the response of lake biota
and its internal processes along a trophic contiuum. A system of this sort
was applied to 24 large lakes in the Masurian Landscape Protected Area
and led to recommendations for different forms of protection for both
watersheds and lakes in Poland.
Degradation of groundwater resources is a different class of environ-
mental problems than cultural eutrophication of surface waters. Nitrate
loadings from septic fields and agricultural practices are major problems.
Contamination of potable water by halogenated solvents and pesticides is
another class of emerging environmental problems for Poland. A monitor-
ing program should be initiated for nitrates, synthetic organic substances,
and metallo-organic substances in groundwater and ecological food chains.
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT CASE STUDIES
In Chapter 20, Trojan presents the results of a two-year comparative
analysis of the concepts and methods used in development of environmental
policy in several of the socialist countries of Europe, including the USSR,
the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland.
This study reveals substantial similarities in policy perspectives in these
countries and in many democratic countries. These similarities are evident
in the recommendations deriving from the study:
· Improve the organization of local and central government agencies
concerned with environmental protection and natural resource.
· Increase collaboration between countries in developing equipment
for environmental monitoring and protection.
· Develop legal, economic, and regional planning instruments that
are consistent with ecological policy initiatives.
· Enhance educational and other social programs that will positively
reinforce ecologically sound management decisions and actions.
In Chapter 21, Riordan reviews the progress in scientific understanding
that was achieved and the stalemate in political negotiations that took place
between Canada and the United States with regard to acid deposition and
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26
ECOLOGICAL RISKS
its effects during the years between 1982 and 1987. Both the scientific
progress and the political stalemate that developed during this period
illustrate how difficult it can be to achieve both a scientific and a political
consensus on what should be done about a complex environmental problem
like acid deposition.
Some scientism and industrial and political leaders in both countries
were convinced that acid deposition posed a serious threat to sensitive
aquatic ecosystems and that significant decreases in emissions of sulfur and
nitrogen oxides should be undertaken immediately. Others were equally
convinced that there was not an immediate need for decisions and that time
was available for additional research to resolve important uncertainties.
Still others stood somewhere between these extremes. The end result was
a standoff which may be resolved by future changes in scientific consensus
and/or industrial and political leadership in one country or the other.
Whatever the future may hold, Riordan's analysis of the scientific and
political issues provides a useful case study for future reference.
In Chapter 22, Kassenberg provides a detailed diagnosis of the current
ecological crisis in Poland. His analysis begins with a presentation of
monitoring data on air quality, water quality, changes in the condition of
land, and the status of living resources in forests and landscape parks.
It continues with a description of the principal factors which have led
to changes which, in aggregate economic terms, represent more than 10
percent of the national economic product of Poland. He also describes a
four-zone environmental classification system for Poland and outlines the
environmental policies required for protection or restoration of each area.
These four zones include:
Zone I: characterized by many contiguous or nearly contiguous areas
of high ecological hazard; requires intensive efforts for restoration of living
conditions and economic activities;
Zone II: includes two heavily polluted coastal areas; requires a signifi-
cant decrease in human population density and intensity of use;
Zone III: several ecological hazard areas are dispersed; requires re-
gional development that extends across natural barriers; and
Zone IU: relatively free of pollution problems; requires implementation
of the principles of ecodevelopment.
In Chapter 23, Juda and Budzinski discuss the linkages between energy
use and environmental problems. In Poland, as in many other countries,
energy use is coupled with environmental issues especially where coal
seines as the primary source of energy for generation of electricity. ~
understand the complexity of these relationships and interdependencies on
a country-wide basis, complex system models are needed which incorporate
both ecological and economic factors. Juda and Budzinski describe some
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OVERV7EW
27
aspects of these models which are predicated on optimum consumption.
They outline a number of opportunities for application of these models
and describe the sequential components of an overall systems analysis for
Poland.
SYNTHESIS ANI) INTEGRATION
The book ends with a summary chapter by Auerbach and Maki. In
Chapter 24, they have put forward a conceptual framework for a science-
based environmental policy and restoration program for pollution-impacted
ecosystems. This conceptual framework includes many ideas that are de-
veloped in the earlier chapters of this book.
The principal elements of this conceptual framework include the fol-
lowing steps in a continuous system of ecological risk ecological assessment,
and ecological management activities:
Step 1: Monitoring programs that provide objective data for analysis
of current conditions and trends in the condition of ecosystems;
Step 2: Ecological risk assessments that define the scope of exist-
ing problems within ecosystems that are now being impacted or may be
impacted in the future;
Step 3: Development of science-based policy recommendations that
will lead to improvement in the condition of the ecosystems shown to be
impacted or at risk in Steps 1 and 2 (above);
Step 4: Definition of environmental limits for continuing economic
development and initiation of public education about these environmental
limitations;
Step 5: Implementation of technologies that will allow for sustained use
and enjoyment of the ecosystems that are at risk or of control technologies
that will allow presently damaged ecosystems to recover;
Step 6: Reassessment and redefinition of needs for environmental
monitoring in the light of experience which feeds back to Step 1 once
again.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
ecological risks
