A comparative Study of Ecological Risk Index for Site-specific Soil Ecological Risk Assessment

Abstract

Objectives Since the risk of pollutants in soil environment may vary depending on the characteristics, functions, and environmental conditions of the soil, the site-specific soil ecological risk assessment (SERA) should be conducted to protect soil ecosystem from pollutants. It has been confirmed that each country is conducting SERAs based on site-specific guidelines suitable for their own conditions. However, in Korea, there is a lack of basis for introducing SERA, therefore, the development of techniques for SERA which is suitable for domestic soil conditions is required. Accordingly, this study aimed to propose the direction of domestic guideline for SERA. Methods This study investigated and analyzed the ecological risk indices for SERA. The factors were classified the ecological risk indices based on chemical, toxicological, and integrated evaluations. Results and Discussion For the chemical indices, they have limitations that it is difficult to reflect soil characteristics and cannot indicate a relation with ecological receptors, although they can calculate contamination level rapidly. The toxicological indices can calculate the effect of pollutions on ecological receptors. However, there are also limitations that it is difficult to reproduce environmental conditions for target site. While the integrated indices require the ecological assessment along with chemical, toxicological analysis. They are found to quantify complex contaminations with reflecting site-specific characteristics of soils and ecological receptors. Conclusion The techniques for domestic site-specific SERA should be based on the indices for integrated assessment.

Keywords

• soil ecological risk assessment
• risk index
• ecotoxicity