Environmental Security and Environmental Management: The Role of Risk Assessment
Environmental Security and Environmental Management: The Role of Risk Assessment

Author: Benoit Morel

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2007-05-22

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1402038933

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The concept of “environmental security” has emerged as one basis for understanding international conflicts. This phrase can mean a variety of things. It can signify security issues stemming from environmental concerns or conflicting needs, or it can mean that the environment is treated as a resource for the long term, and the question is what should be done today to preserve the quality of the environment in the future. In the same way that energy security is about ensuring access to energy for the long run, it can also mean that pressing environmental concerns create a situation where different countries and communities are forced to collaboratively design a unified response, even if cooperation is not generally in the logic of their relations. Over the last several years, the authors of this book and their colleagues have tried to demonstrate the power of risk assessment and decision analysis as valuable tools that decision makers should use for a broad range of environmental problems, including environmental security. Risk analysis is almost more a state of mind or a way of looking at problems than it is a kind of algorithm or a set of recipes. It projects a kind of rationality on problems and forces a certain degree of quantitative rigor, as opposed to the all too common tendency of making environmental recommendations based on anecdotal evidence.

Reference Guide for Applying Risk and Reliability-Based Approaches for Bridge Scour Prediction
Reference Guide for Applying Risk and Reliability-Based Approaches for Bridge Scour Prediction

Author: Peter Frederick Lagasse

Publisher: Transportation Research Board

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 0309283566

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"TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 761: Reference Guide for Applying Risk and Reliability-Based Approaches for Bridge Scour Prediction presents a reference guide designed to help identify and evaluate the uncertainties associated with bridge scour prediction including hydrologic, hydraulic, and model/equation uncertainty. For complex foundation systems and channel conditions, the report includes a step-by-step procedure designed to provide scour factors for site-specific conditions."--Publisher's description.

Risk Communication and Miscommunication
Risk Communication and Miscommunication

Author: Carolyn Boiarsky

Publisher: University Press of Colorado

Published: 2016-09-01

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 1607324679

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Effective communication can help prevent or minimize damage from environmental disasters. In Risk Communication and Miscommunication, Carolyn Boiarsky teaches students, technical writers, public affairs officers, engineers, scientists, and governmental officials the writing and communication skills necessary for dealing with environmental and technological problems that could lead to major crises. Drawing from research in rhetoric, linguistics, technical communication, educational psychology, and web design, Boiarsky provides a new way to look at risk communication. She shows how failing to consider the readers’ needs or the rhetorical context in which one writes can be catastrophic and how anticipating those needs can enhance effectiveness and prevent disaster. She examines the communications and miscommunications of original e-mails, memos, and presentations about various environmental disasters, including the Columbia space shuttle explosion and the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, and successes, such as the Enbridge pipeline expansion and the opening of the Mississippi Spillway, and offers recommendations for effective communication. Taking into account the growing need to communicate complex and often controversial issues across vast geographic and cultural spaces with an ever-expanding array of electronic media, Risk Communication and Miscommunication provides strategies for clear communication of data, ideas, and procedures to varied audiences to prevent or minimize damage from environmental incidents.

Mental Modeling Approach
Mental Modeling Approach

Author: Matthew D. Wood

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-12-09

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 1493966162

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This book provides an easy-to-read, user-oriented introduction to mental models research and Mental Modeling TechnologyTM. Mental models are powerful influences human behavior. The book offers insight from the developers and most experienced application professionals of a widely proven methodology for understanding and influencing human judgment, decision making and behavior. The case studies show examples of the methodological concepts in their application context. It is one of the most comprehensive collections of cases focused on government needs of any similar qualitative analysis approach. Finally, it presents an introduction to software tools and tutorials that enable readers to use the approach for their own research needs.