Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA)

The assessment of environmental effects of certain stressors and their immediate and long-term potential damage or harm to an ecosystem. Risk assessment is aimed at better identifying which species might be most adversely affected by a stressor by assessing the probability, or risk, of effects. Within the context of marine systems, risk assessment has been applied to compare the importance of individual stressors and to identify which species face the greatest threat from individual or multiple stressors.