Discovery of Sound in the Sea (DOSITS) Webinar Series: Ecological risk assessment frameworks: A spectrum of approaches, assumptions, and applications

Ecological risk assessment is an increasingly common method used in evaluating the potential impacts of natural and human-induced impacts on protected species and environments. Such evaluations have been applied across a wide range of natural environments and taxa but share the use of an integrated ecological perspective in which potential risk from various kinds of perturbations are placed within the contexts of species-typical life history, environmental, and population parameters. Approaches can include a wide range of approaches from quite simple and qualitative to complex and explicitly quantitative. Each have strengths and limitations, depending on the species, context, and requirements related to regulations and management. This talk will present a spectrum of risk assessment approaches focused on potential noise impacts in marine environments and discuss the associated advantages and challenges of different approaches.