The Anna Karenina Principle Applied to Ecological Risk Assessments of Multiple Stressors

Abstract

Successful ecological risk assessments are all alike; every unsuccessful ecological risk assessment fails in its own way. Tolstoy posited a similar analogy in his novel Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” By that, Tolstoy meant that for a marriage to be happy, it had to succeed in several key aspects. Failure on even one of these aspects, and the marriage is doomed. In this paper, I argue that the Anna Karenina principle also applies to ecological risk assessments involving multiple stressors. In particular, I argue that multiple stressors assessments and environmental decision making will not have a happy marriage unless the following can be achieved: (1) there must be societal and political buy-in to the assessment and decision-making process; (2) the assessment must have the latitude to consider a wide range of stressors and potential risk management options; (3) there must be a commitment to following a rigorous focusing of the assessment and to expending resources for model development and data collection; and (4) an adaptive management strategy must be adopted wherein risk management actions are undertaken, system response intensively observed and assessed, and revised management actions taken as appropriate. Failure to meet any of the above criteria for success will doom a multiple stressors assessment and prevent its use in effective decision-making.

Keywords:

• ecological risk assessment
• multiple stressors
• environmental decision-making.