Comparative Risk Assessment and Environmental Decision Making
Comparative Risk Assessment and Environmental Decision Making

Author: Igor Linkov

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-03-02

Total Pages: 431

ISBN-13: 1402022433

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Decision making in environmental projects is typically a complex and confusing process characterized by trade-offs between socio-political, environmental, and economic impacts. Comparative Risk Assessment (CRA) is a methodology applied to facilitate decision making when various activities compete for limited resources. CRA has become an increasingly accepted research tool and has helped to characterize environmental profiles and priorities on the regional and national level. CRA may be considered as part of the more general but as yet quite academic field of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). Considerable research in the area of MCDA has made available methods for applying scientific decision theoretical approaches to multi-criteria problems, but its applications, especially in environmental areas, are still limited. The papers show that the use of comparative risk assessment can provide the scientific basis for environmentally sound and cost-efficient policies, strategies, and solutions to our environmental challenges.

Making Better Environmental Decisions
Making Better Environmental Decisions

Author: Mary O'Brien

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 9780262650533

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This work recommends a simple yet profound shift to another decision-making technique: alternatives assessment. Instead of asking how much of a hazardous activity is safe, alternatives assessment asks how we can avoid or minimize damage.

Science and Judgment in Risk Assessment
Science and Judgment in Risk Assessment

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1994-01-01

Total Pages: 668

ISBN-13: 030904894X

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The public depends on competent risk assessment from the federal government and the scientific community to grapple with the threat of pollution. When risk reports turn out to be overblownâ€"or when risks are overlookedâ€"public skepticism abounds. This comprehensive and readable book explores how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can improve its risk assessment practices, with a focus on implementation of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. With a wealth of detailed information, pertinent examples, and revealing analysis, the volume explores the "default option" and other basic concepts. It offers two views of EPA operations: The first examines how EPA currently assesses exposure to hazardous air pollutants, evaluates the toxicity of a substance, and characterizes the risk to the public. The second, more holistic, view explores how EPA can improve in several critical areas of risk assessment by focusing on cross-cutting themes and incorporating more scientific judgment. This comprehensive volume will be important to the EPA and other agencies, risk managers, environmental advocates, scientists, faculty, students, and concerned individuals.

Introduction to Risk Analysis
Introduction to Risk Analysis

Author: Daniel M. Byrd

Publisher: Government Institutes

Published: 2000-08-01

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 1591919630

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Written for safety and loss-control, environmental, and quality managers, this is the first comprehensive, integrated guide to developing a complete environmental risk analysis for regulated substances and processes. Unlike other books, Introduction to Risk Analysis looks at risk from a regulatory perspective, allowing both professionals in regulatory agencies concerned with risk_including OSHA, EPA, USDA, DOT, FDA, and state environmental agencies_and professionals in any agency-regulated industry to understand and implement the methods required for proper risk assessment. The authors examine risk and the structure of analysis. Emphasizing the predictive nature of risk, they discuss the quantitative nature of risk and explore quantitative-analysis topics, including data graphing, logarithmic thinking, risk estimating, and curve fitting. Chapters include discussions on functions, models, and uncertainties; the regulatory process; risk assessment; exposure; dosimetry; epidemiology; toxicology; risk characterization; comparative risk assessment; ecological risk assessment; risk management; and risk communication. Six in-depth case studies, an annotated bibliography, and more than 50 figures are also included.

Ecological Risk Assessment
Ecological Risk Assessment

Author: Glenn W. Suter II

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 1992-10-23

Total Pages: 564

ISBN-13: 9780873718752

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Recently, environmental scientists have been required to perform a new type of assessment-ecological risk assessment. This is the first book that explains how to perform ecological risk assessments and gives assessors access to the full range of useful data, models, and conceptual approaches they need to perform an accurate assessment. It explains how ecological risk assessment relates to more familiar types of assessments. It also shows how to organize and conduct an ecological risk assessment, including defining the source, selecting endpoints, describing the relevant features of the receiving environment, estimating exposure, estimating effects, characterizing the risks, and interacting with the risk manager. Specific technical topics include finding and selecting toxicity data; statistical and mathematical models of effects on organisms, populations, and ecosystems; estimation of chemical fate parameters; modeling of chemical transport and fate; estimation of chemical uptake by organisms; and estimation, propagation, and presentation of uncertainty. Ecological Risk Assessment also covers conventional risk assessments, risk assessments for existing contamination, large scale problems, exotic organisms, and risk assessments based on environmental monitoring. Environmental assessors at regulatory agencies, consulting firms, industry, and government labs need this book for its approaches and methods for ecological risk assessment. Professors in ecology and other environmental sciences will find the book's practical preparation useful for classroom instruction. Environmental toxicologists and chemists will appreciate the discussion of the utility for risk assessment of particular toxicity tests and chemical determinations.

Environmental Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty
Environmental Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty

Author: Institute of Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2013-05-20

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0309290236

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of several federal agencies responsible for protecting Americans against significant risks to human health and the environment. As part of that mission, EPA estimates the nature, magnitude, and likelihood of risks to human health and the environment; identifies the potential regulatory actions that will mitigate those risks and protect public health1 and the environment; and uses that information to decide on appropriate regulatory action. Uncertainties, both qualitative and quantitative, in the data and analyses on which these decisions are based enter into the process at each step. As a result, the informed identification and use of the uncertainties inherent in the process is an essential feature of environmental decision making. EPA requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) convene a committee to provide guidance to its decision makers and their partners in states and localities on approaches to managing risk in different contexts when uncertainty is present. It also sought guidance on how information on uncertainty should be presented to help risk managers make sound decisions and to increase transparency in its communications with the public about those decisions. Given that its charge is not limited to human health risk assessment and includes broad questions about managing risks and decision making, in this report the committee examines the analysis of uncertainty in those other areas in addition to human health risks. Environmental Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty explains the statement of task and summarizes the findings of the committee.

Science and Decisions
Science and Decisions

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2009-03-24

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 0309120462

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Risk assessment has become a dominant public policy tool for making choices, based on limited resources, to protect public health and the environment. It has been instrumental to the mission of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as other federal agencies in evaluating public health concerns, informing regulatory and technological decisions, prioritizing research needs and funding, and in developing approaches for cost-benefit analysis. However, risk assessment is at a crossroads. Despite advances in the field, risk assessment faces a number of significant challenges including lengthy delays in making complex decisions; lack of data leading to significant uncertainty in risk assessments; and many chemicals in the marketplace that have not been evaluated and emerging agents requiring assessment. Science and Decisions makes practical scientific and technical recommendations to address these challenges. This book is a complement to the widely used 1983 National Academies book, Risk Assessment in the Federal Government (also known as the Red Book). The earlier book established a framework for the concepts and conduct of risk assessment that has been adopted by numerous expert committees, regulatory agencies, and public health institutions. The new book embeds these concepts within a broader framework for risk-based decision-making. Together, these are essential references for those working in the regulatory and public health fields.

Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making
Public Participation in Environmental Assessment and Decision Making

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2008-11-07

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0309134412

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Federal agencies have taken steps to include the public in a wide range of environmental decisions. Although some form of public participation is often required by law, agencies usually have broad discretion about the extent of that involvement. Approaches vary widely, from holding public information-gathering meetings to forming advisory groups to actively including citizens in making and implementing decisions. Proponents of public participation argue that those who must live with the outcome of an environmental decision should have some influence on it. Critics maintain that public participation slows decision making and can lower its quality by including people unfamiliar with the science involved. This book concludes that, when done correctly, public participation improves the quality of federal agencies' decisions about the environment. Well-managed public involvement also increases the legitimacy of decisions in the eyes of those affected by them, which makes it more likely that the decisions will be implemented effectively. This book recommends that agencies recognize public participation as valuable to their objectives, not just as a formality required by the law. It details principles and approaches agencies can use to successfully involve the public.

Risk Assessment in the Federal Government
Risk Assessment in the Federal Government

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1983-02-01

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 0309033497

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The regulation of potentially hazardous substances has become a controversial issue. This volume evaluates past efforts to develop and use risk assessment guidelines, reviews the experience of regulatory agencies with different administrative arrangements for risk assessment, and evaluates various proposals to modify procedures. The book's conclusions and recommendations can be applied across the entire field of environmental health.

Risks and Decisions for Conservation and Environmental Management
Risks and Decisions for Conservation and Environmental Management

Author: Mark Burgman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-04-07

Total Pages: 516

ISBN-13: 9780521543019

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This book outlines how to conduct a complete environmental risk assessment. The first part documents the psychology and philosophy of risk perception and assessment, introducing a taxonomy of uncertainty and the importance of context. It provides a critical examination of the use and abuse of expert judgement and goes on to outline approaches to hazard identification and subjective ranking that account for uncertainty and context. The second part of the book describes technical tools that can assist risk assessments to be transparent and internally consistent. These include interval arithmetic, ecotoxicological methods, logic trees and Monte Carlo simulation. These methods have an established place in risk assessments in many disciplines and their strengths and weaknesses are explored. The last part of the book outlines some new approaches, including p-bounds and information-gap theory, and describes how quantitative and subjective assessments can be used to make transparent decisions.