PRORISK · Best chemical risk assessment professionals for maximum Ecosystem Services benefit

Best chemical risk assessment professionals for maximum Ecosystem Services benefit

How can we advance protection of ecosystems against effects of hazardous and toxic chemicals? What novel approaches, tools and knowledge should be integrated to assure that chemicals are properly assessed, managed, and their impacts on ecosystem services are minimized? These are the questions driving the PRORISK training network. It is recognized that human wellbeing and economic prosperity of the society depend on the sustainable use of ecosystems. To allow for sustainable functioning, biodiversity needs to be maintained and restored, and ecosystem service thinking as well as valuation of socio-economic costs associated with ecosystem service damage need to be implemented into policy and decision making. In parallel to other global threats such as climate change, ubiquitous environmental pollution by hazardous chemicals is a major factor affecting ecosystem functioning and human health. In parallel, major advances are achieved in technologies such as non-target screening of chemicals, toxicogenomics, or novel predictive approaches such as Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) that link toxic effects at different levels of biological hierarchy. Nevertheless, the existing regulatory assessment of chemicals still relies on simplified (eco)toxicological testing, which is mostly disconnected both mechanistic knowledge and protection of ecosystem functions. The overarching goal of PRORISK was to address this gap by proposing an integrative next generation Environmental Risk Assessment (NG-ERA) framework and test the NG-ERA framework in model case studies addressing ecosystem services of both terrestrial ecosystem (crop productivity) and aquatic ecosystem (recreational fishery). PRORISK thus aimed to train a new cohort of broadly educated Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) capable to advance future chemical risk assessment. Individual ESRs´ research projects aimed: • To develop novel approaches for assessing exposures and evaluation of chemical-biological interactions • To advance understanding of toxicokinetics in the context of abiotic stressors such as changing climate • To prepare a suite of molecular and cellular tools, functional whole organism assays as well as bioinformatics approaches supporting development of (quantitative) (q)AOPs • To build several novel (q)AOPs for priority neuro/developmental, physiological and endocrine disruption-related adverse outcomes • To establish ecological production functions allowing to translate effects measured on biological models to ecosystem services • To draft an approach for assessing stressor risk to multiple ecosystem services provided by assemblages of species • To develop an integrated NG-ERA framework linking exposures to chemicals with AOPs up to the ecosystem services • To advance tools for estimating the socio-economic consequences of chemical impacts on ecosystem services

Data: CORDIS, © European Union