Lexikon

ecology means the scientific study of the distributions, abundance and relations of organisms and their interactions with the environment. Ecology includes the study of plant and animal populations, plant and animal communities and ecosystems. Ecosystems describe the web or network of relations among organisms at different scales of organization. Since ecology refers to any form of biodiversity, ecologists research everything from tiny bacteria's role in nutrient recycling to the effects of tropical rain forest on the Earth's atmosphere. The discipline of ecology emerged from the natural sciences in the late 19th century. Ecology is not synonymous with environment, environmentalism, or environmental science. Ecology is closely related to the disciplines of physiology, evolution, genetics and behavior.

Like many of the natural sciences, a conceptual understanding of ecology is found in the broader details of study, including:

• life processes explaining adaptations
• distribution and abundance of organisms
• the movement of materials and energy through living communities
• the successional development of ecosystems, and
• the abundance and distribution of biodiversity in context of the environment.

Ecology is distinguished from natural history, which deals primarily with the descriptive study of organisms. It is a sub-discipline of biology, which is the study of life.

There are many practical applications of ecology in conservation biology, wetland management, natural resource management (agriculture, forestry, fisheries), city planning (urban ecology), community health, economics, basic & applied science and it provides a conceptual framework for understanding and researching human social interaction (human ecology).

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the change over a period of time in the value (monetary and non-monetary) of goods and services and the ability and capacity to produce goods and services. It is economic growth which generates the wealth necessary to provide social services, health care, and education. It is the basis for ongoing job creation. However, sustainable development requires that there be a change in the nature of economic growth, to ensure that goods and services are produced by environmentally sound and economically sustainable processes. This will require efficient use of resources, value-added processing, sustained yield management of renewable resources, and the consideration and accounting of all externalities and side-effects involved in the extraction, processing, production, distribution, consumption and disposal of those goods.

the characteristic of prolonged, careful, efficient and prudent (wise and judicious) use of resources (natural, fiscal, human), products, facilities, and services. It is based on thorough knowledge and involves operating with little waste and accounting for all costs and benefits, including those which are not marketable and can result in savings.

ecoremediation is based on the co-operation of plants, soil and soil living microorganisms, mainlyof the rhyzosphere. Ecoremediation comprises systems, processes and technologies which function in natural ecosystems, or as an artificial part of a natural ecosystem. In ecoremedial technologies the man-made artificial ecosystem is able to compensate adverse environmental effects of chemical substances or contaminated environmnetal compartments or phases. Its function is based on the close co-operation of soil microbes and plants, and its proper function depends on the balanced and controlled element- and water-cycle of the artificial ecosystem designed for remedial purposes.

Ecoremedial technologies can be applied for waste water treatment, for the remediation and maintenance of lakes, reservoirs and wetlands, for complex rehabilitation and reclamation of landfills and for the complex rehabilitation or remediation of contaminated or deteriorated soil.

Ecoremediation is used for long term and sustainable protection, restoration and complex rehabilitation of environment of damage or exposed to potential damage. Ecoremedial technologies are cost- and eco-efficient in protection of water resources, streams, rivers, lakes, groundwater and the sea and in ensuring the sustainable quality of the environment on long term.The most important characteristics of ecoremedial technologies are their adaptive character, their high buffer and self-protective capacities against adverse affects of antropogenic origin, and they are highly potent in preservation of natural habitats and biological diversity.

Eco-remediation has more areas, such as bioremediation, utilising soil microflora; phytoengineering utilising plants for many purposes, artifically built lakes, aerobic and anaerobic wetlands, reactive soil zones, etc., are all considered as ecoremedial technologies.

ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving, physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water, and sunlight. It is all the organisms in a given area, along with the nonliving (abiotic) factors with which they interact; a biological community and its physical environment. The entire array of organisms inhabiting a particular ecosystem is called a community. In a typical ecosystem, plants and other photosynthetic organisms are the producers that provide the food. Ecosystems can be permanent or temporary. Ecosystems usually form a number of food webs.

Ecosystems are functional units consisting of living things in a given area, non-living chemical and physical factors of their environment, linked together through nutrient cycle and energy flow.

1. Natural ecosystem

• Terrestrial ecosystem
• Aquatic ecosystems (Lentic, the ecosystem of a lake, pond or swamp; Lotic, the ecosystem of a river, stream or spring

2. Ecosystem of artificial, man-made environments.

ecosystems management is an approach to natural resource management that focuses on sustaining ecosystems to meet both ecological and human needs in the future. Ecosystem management is adaptive to changing needs and new information. It promotes shared vision of a desired future by integrating social, environmental and economic perspectives to managing geographically defined natural ecological systems.

Ecosystems promote human well being through the various services they provide.

One of the six priorities of the UNEP medium‑term strategy for 2010–2013 is that “countries utilize the ecosystem approach to enhance human well-being”. The UNEP Ecosystem Management Programme is centred on the functioning and resilience of the ecosystems and the services they provide. The programme aims to support countries and regions to:

1. increasingly integrate an ecosystem management approach into development and planning processes;
2. acquire the capacity to use ecosystem management tools; and
3. realign their environmental programmes and financing to tackle the degradation of selected priority ecosystem services.

The programme is guided by five major interlinked elements: human well-being, indirect and direct drivers of change, ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services. As ecosystem services are interlinked and cannot be treated in isolation, UNEP promotes a holistic perspective for dealing with bundles of interlinked services to reverse their decline through improved ecosystem functioning and increased resilience. The services fall under the following categories: regulating, provisioning, supporting and cultural services

The UNEP programme focuses on 11 of the 15 degraded ecosystem services mainly comprising:
Regulating services: climate, water, natural hazard and disease regulation, water purification and waste treatment, which are often strongly affected by the overuse of provisioning services;
Provisioning services: freshwater, energy (especially the emerging issues around biofuel production) and capture fisheries;
Cultural services: Recreation and ecotourism service;
Supporting services: nutrient cycling and primary production which underlie the delivery of all the other services but are not directly accessible to people.

Source: http://www.unep.org/ecosystemmanagement/Introduction/tabid/293/language/en-US/Default.aspx

humankind benefits from a multitude of resources and processes that are supplied by natural ecosystems. Collectively, these benefits are known as ecosystem services and include products like clean drinking water and processes such as the decomposition of wastes. While scientists and environmentalists have discussed ecosystem services for decades, these services were popularized and their definitions formalized by the United Nations 2004 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a four-year study involving more than 1,300 scientists worldwide. This grouped ecosystem services into four broad categories: provisioning, such as the production of food and water; regulating, such as the control of climate and disease; supporting, such as nutrient cycles and crop pollination; and cultural, such as spiritual and recreational benefits.

Experts currently recognize four categories of ecosystem services. The following lists represent samples of each:

ECOTOXICITY TESTING METHODS TO BE USED BY THE REACH REGULATION are enlisted in the COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 440/2008 of 30 May 2008 laying down test methods pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH)

(1) Pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006, test methods are to be adopted at Community level for the purposes of tests on substances where such tests are required to generate information on intrinsic properties of substances.

(2) Council Directive 67/548/EEC of 27 June 1967 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous substances laid down, in Annex V, methods for the determination of the physico-chemical properties, toxicity and ecotoxicity of substances and preparations. Annex V to Directive 67/548/EEC has been deleted by Directive 2006/121/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council with effect from 1 June 2008.

(3) The test methods contained in Annex V to Directive 67/ 548/EEC should be incorporated into this Regulation.

(4) This Regulation does not exclude the use of other test methods, provided that their use is in accordance with Article 13(3) of Regulation 1907/2006.

(5) The principles of replacement, reduction and refinement of the use of animals in procedures should be fully taken into account in the design of the test methods, in particular when appropriate validated methods become available to replace, reduce or refine animal testing.

(6) The provisions of this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Committee established under Article 133 of Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006

Article 1: The test methods to be applied for the purposes of Regulation 1907/2006/EC are set out in the Annex to this Regulation.

Article 2: The Commission shall review, where appropriate, the test methods contained in this Regulation with a view to replacing, reducing or refining testing on vertebrate animals.

Article 3: All references to Annex V to Directive 67/548/EEC shall be construed as references to this Regulation.

Article 4: This Regulation shall enter into force on the day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

It shall apply from 1 June 2008.

LIST OF METHODS FOR THE DETERMINATION OF ECOTOXICITY

C.1. Acute toxicity for fish
C.2. Daphnia sp. Acute immobilisation test
C.3. Algal inhibition test
C.4. Determination of ‘ready’ biodegradability
Part i. General considerations
Part ii. Doc die-away test (method C.4-a)
Part iii. Modified oecd screening test (method C.4-b)
Part iv. Co2 evolution test (method C.4-c)
Part v. Manometric respirometry test (method C.4-d)
Part vi. Closed bottle test (method C.4-e)
Part vii. M.I.T.I. Test (method C.4-f)
C.5. Degradation — biochemical oxygen demand
C.6. Degradation — chemical oxygen demand
C.7. Degradation — abiotic degradation: hydrolysis as a function of ph
C.8. Toxicity for earthworms
C.9. Biodegradation — Zahn-Wellens test
C.10. Biodegradation — activated sludge simulation tests
C.11. Biodegradation — activated sludge respiration inhibition
C.12. Biodegradation — modified SCAS test
C.13. Bioconcentration: flow-through fish test
C.14. Fish juvenile growth test
C.15. Fish, short-term toxicity test on embryo and sac-fry stages
C.16. Honeybees — acute oral toxicity test
C.17. Honeybees — acute contact toxicity test
C.18. Adsorption/desorption using a batch equilibrium method
C.19. Estimation of the adsorption coefficient (koc) on soil and on sewage sludge using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)
C.20. Daphnia magna reproduction test
C.21. Soil microorganisms: nitrogen transformation test
C.22. Soil microorganisms: carbon transformation test
C.23. Aerobic and anaerobic transformation in soil
C.24. Aerobic and anaerobic transformation in aquatic sediment systems

European Crop Protection Association representing the pest control industry and promoting modern agricultural technology in the context of sustainable development.

Source:
http://www.ecpa.eu/

European Economic Community (EEC), also referred to as simply the European Community, or the Common Market was an international organization that existed between 1957 and 1993 which was created to bring about economic integration (including a single market) among Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
It was enlarged later to include six additional states and, from 1967, its institutions also governed the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom) under the term European Communities.
When the European Union (EU) was created in 1993, the EEC was transformed into the European Community, one of the EU's three pillars, with EEC institutions continuing as those of the EU.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Community

see omega-3 fatty acids

electrical resistive heating is an in-situ electrical heating technology that uses electricity and applies it into the ground/soil through electrodes. The electrodes can be installed either vertically to about 100 feet or horizontally underneath buildings.

electrokinetics relies upon application of a low-intensity direct current through the soil between ceramic electrodes that are divided into a cathode array and an anode array. This mobilizes charged species, causing ions and water to move toward the electrodes. Metal ions, ammonium ions, and positively charged organic compounds move toward the cathode. Anions such as chloride, cyanide, fluoride, nitrate, and negatively charged organic compounds move toward the anode.

Removal of contaminants at the electrode may be accomplished by several means, among which are: electroplating at the electrode; precipitation or co-precipitation at the electrode; pumping of water near the electrode; or complexing with ion exchange resins.

Source: US-EPA, Clu-In: http://www.clu-in.org/techfocus/default.focus/sec/Electrokinetics%3A_Electric_Current_Technologies/cat/Overview/

electroporation is a process using high-voltage current to make cell membranes permeable to allow the introduction of new DNA; commonly used in recombinant DNA technology.

European List of Notified chemical substances
http://ecb.jrc.ec.europa.eu/elincs

pollutants that have been recently discovered in the environment such as endocrine or immune disruptors. Emerging contaminants are chemicals or materials of interest that are characterized by: - perceived or real threat to human health or environment. - lack of a published health standards or an evolving standard. - contaminant may also be "emerging" because of the discovery of a new source, a new pathway to humans, or a new detection method or technology

emission controls are controls requiring a specific emission limitation, for instance an emission limit value, or otherwise specifying limits or conditions on the effects, nature or other characteristics of an emission or operating conditions which affect emissions.

Second Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program Chemical List (EDSP) for Tier 1 Screening

Source: http://www.caslab.com/Endocrine-Disruptor-Chemical-List/

Chemical Name CAS Number

the percentage of total energy input that does useful work and is not lost or converted to low temperature, usually useless, heat.

enhanced biodegradation or biostimulation means the addition of nutrients to encourage the growth of indigenous contaminant-degrading microorganisms, is one of the most mature methods of bioremediation. It is applicable to both chlorinated and unchlorinated dissolved hydrocarbons.

Biostimulation is dependent on indigenous organisms and thus requires that they are present and that their environment can be altered in a way that will have the desired bioremediation effect. In addition to an explanation of the concept of biostimulation, this chapter discusses critical aspects of site biogeochemistry, characterization and monitoring, combined biological technologies, and research needs.

Source: US-EPA, Clu-In: http://www.clu-in.org/techfocus/default.focus/sec/Bioremediation_of_Chlorinated_Solvents/cat/Overview/

it is a system for the accreditation and supervision of environmental verifiers operated by an impartial institution or organisation designated or created by the Member State (accreditation body), with sufficient resources and competency and having appropriate procedures for performing the functions defined by the Regulation of 761/2001 for such a system.

Regulation (EC) No 761/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 March 2001 allowing voluntary participation by organisations in a Community eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS).

For the purposes of Article 9 of Regulation (EC) No 761/2001, the Commission recognises the following standards and accreditation requirements for the certification bodies:

1. in Austrian legislation: Environmental Management Law (UMG BGBl.I Nr.96/2001) in the relevant version applicable to environmental verifier organisations and individual environmental verifiers;

2. in German legislation: guidelines for accreditation of certification bodies for environmental management systems (EMS) and certification procedures for EMS — issued September 1996 by the German Federal Ministries of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and for Economics and approved by the Environmental Verification Committee pursuant to Article 21 of the German EMAS Act (Umweltauditgesetz);

3. accreditation requirements, based on the corresponding Guidelines endorsed and made publicly available by the European cooperation for Accreditation (EA), for ISO 14001:2004 certification bodies accredited according to either of the following:

(a) ISO/IEC 17021:2006 (Conformity assessment — Requirements for bodies providing audit and certification of management systems);

(b) ISO/IEC Guide 66:1999 (General Requirements for bodies operating assessment and certification/registration of environmental management systems EMS) until 15 September 2008.