Ecotoxicology and Ecological Risk Assessment

Recommended Prerequisites

Fluency in english.

Teaching Methods

Strong enrolment of students in the teaching-learning process.

Learning Outcomes

This discipline aims at acquiring and deepening, by the students, of major concepts and methodologies in Ecotoxicology and Ecological Risk Assessment, in a multidisciplinary approach, integrating different biological entities susceptible to suffer effects due to quantitatively and qualitatively different chemical stressors.

Furthermore, it is also expected that students be able to apply acquired knowledge in novel situations, namely in real site-specific risk assessments, and to discuss with non-specialists uncertainties associated to the evaluated risks.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

1. General concepts

1.1. Ecotoxicology. Multidisciplinarity.

1.2. Toxicant and pollutant. Exposure, dose and effect.

1.3. Sources and categories.

1.4. Fate. Exposure pathways.

2. Effects

2.1. Responses and effects at different levels of biological organization

3. Toxicity tests

3.1. Types of tests

3.2. Sub-individual, individual, population and community enpoints

3.3. Relevance, reproducibility, reliability, robustness, and sensitivity

3.4. Tests for different habitats: terrestrial, dulçaquícola, estuarine and marine

3.5. Extrapolation of laboratory results to the field: sources of uncertainty

4. Ecological Risk Assessment

4.1. Hazard and risk

4.2. Risk assessment schemes

4.2.1. Conceptual diagrams: problem identification

4.2.2. Characterization of exposure

4.2.3. Evaluation of effects

4.2.4. Risk characterization, communication and management and monitoring

4.2. Legal aspects.

Head Lecturer(s)

Rui Godinho Lobo Girão Ribeiro

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Laboratory work or Field work: 50.0%
Resolution Problems: 50.0%

Bibliography

C.H., Walker; HOPKIN, S.P.; SIBLY, R.M. (2006). Principles of Ecotoxicology. 3ª ed. E.U.A.: Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton.

Several papers in indexed journal, which change every year