Critical load

In the study of air pollution, a critical load is defined as ”A quantitative estimate of an exposure to one or more pollutants below which significant harmful effects on specified sensitive elements of the environment do not occur according to present knowledge”. (Nilsson and Grennfelt 1988) Calculating critical load functions and target load functions include several simplifications and thus can be viewed as a risk concept: The higher the exceedance the higher the risk for adverse effects and there is a certain risk that zero exceedance will still lead to adverse effects.

Critical load

In the study of air pollution, a critical load is defined as ”A quantitative estimate of an exposure to one or more pollutants below which significant harmful effects on specified sensitive elements of the environment do not occur according to present knowledge”. (Nilsson and Grennfelt 1988) Calculating critical load functions and target load functions include several simplifications and thus can be viewed as a risk concept: The higher the exceedance the higher the risk for adverse effects and there is a certain risk that zero exceedance will still lead to adverse effects.