Concluding Remarks

Abstract

Based on the experiences gained from the ESTHER Program, the division of the total decision-making process for chemicals into four major phases, as suggested in Chap. 3, may now be slightly modified. It has, for example, become quite obvious that a proper determination of the probability of damage to ecosystems occurring from actual or projected use of a chemical, in the “risk assessment phase”, goes far beyond the present state of the art. Far from being able to undertake this kind of quantitative assessment of environmental risk caused by discharges of chemicals, we are still at the stage of making qualitative or, at best, semi-quantitative assessments. This, however, does not imply that regulatory bodies could not rely upon such semi-quantitative data for management. There are numerous situations where this kind of data, when based on an ecotoxicologically sound approach, might effectively guide the decisionmaker.