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Technical issues related to the ERICA Tool (on Facilia website)

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Posted: 28/05/2014
From: 
Ben Jaeschke, Sweden

Assessments for Organisms living in air?

Question:

I am running an assessment using the ERICA tool, and am looking to create site-specific  organisms in  ERICA Tool. At present there appears no way to model organisms that live in trees or generally above the ground (external dose approximately equal to IN AIR). For example bats, or epiphytic lichens in trees.

Do you have any suggestions for how best to model these habitats?

One possible method would be to classify the specimen as “bird and flying insect”, but would this be acceptable?

Answer:

Yes I think this is acceptable however, you might have a problem with the limitations on sizes which can be created for organisms in air – 35 g to 2 kg.  Most/all bat species in the UK have a mass below this.  There is a limited evaluation of the impact on estimated dose for organisms outside this mass range .... select help from the ‘add organism’ screen and it should take you to correct place in the help file. Otherwise you probably need to also acknowledge that you are assuming no contribution to dose from the tree.

Answered by Nick Beresford (NERC-CEH), 10/09/2013

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Posted: Asked by course participant (21-23 March 2012 Melbourne, Australia)

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