ecorisk

Overview

ecorisk is an R package operationalizing a modular risk assessment framework for ecosystem-based management. It supports semiquantitative expert scoring approaches as well as quantitative time-series analysis — and allows both to be combined in one integrated assessment.

Key features:

• Risk assessments from single indicator–pressure combinations up to full ecosystem scale
• Integration of expert knowledge and time-series modelling in one framework
• Explicit uncertainty assessment throughout all steps
• Applicable to marine and terrestrial ecosystems
• Publication-ready visualizations via plot_radar() and plot_heatmap()

The ecorisk workflow consists of two parallel pathways (expert scoring and modelling) that are joined for vulnerability and risk calculation, and can then be aggregated to multi-pressure, multi-indicator, and ecosystem risk scores:

Installation

Install the released version from CRAN:

install.packages("ecorisk")

Or install the development version from GitHub using the pak package:

# install.packages("pak")
pak::pak("HeleneGutte/ecorisk")

Usage

A full tutorial using the provided demo datasets is available in the package vignette:

vignette("ecorisk")

Further background on the risk assessment framework and step-by-step function documentation are available on the package website.

Citation

If you use the ecorisk package, please cite it using:

citation("ecorisk")
#> To cite package 'ecorisk' in publications use:
#> 
#>   Gutte H, Otto S (2026). _ecorisk: Risk Assessments for Ecosystems or
#>   Ecosystem Components_. R package version 0.3.1,
#>   <https://github.com/HeleneGutte/ecorisk>.
#> 
#> A BibTeX entry for LaTeX users is
#> 
#>   @Manual{,
#>     title = {ecorisk: Risk Assessments for Ecosystems or Ecosystem Components},
#>     author = {Helene Gutte and Saskia A. Otto},
#>     year = {2026},
#>     note = {R package version 0.3.1},
#>     url = {https://github.com/HeleneGutte/ecorisk},
#>   }

If you use the ecorisk framework or methodology, please also cite the accompanying software paper:

Gutte, H.M., Möllmann, C. & Otto, S.A. (2026). ecorisk: A modular R tool for ecological risk assessment analysis. SoftwareX, 34, 102612. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2026.102612