Bioavailability as a key property in terrestrial ecotoxicity assessment and evaluation

It was the primary scope of the worhshop to give a critical overview of various scientific aspects to determine „bioavailability“ for terrestrial ecotoxicity assessment and evaluation. However, the acceptability and reliability of methods for policy use - e. g. in the field of limit setting - also was taken into account. Consequently, three main aspects covering both areas were addressed specifically: a) a critical assessment of the expertise collected so far and of ist relevance for practical applicability in various policy fields such as standard setting, site specific risk assessment, and assessment of progress in soil remediation in relation to real risk; b) a combination of the available physico-chemical and biological expertise to provide an integrated conceptual framework for further development; c) a mutal agreement on an adequate use of „bioavailability“ in terrestrial impact assessment and on the development of a decision support system in this context.