Environmental Hazards Methodologies For Risk Assessment And Management

From the beginning of 21st century, there has been an awareness of risk in the environment along with a growing concern for the continuing potential damage caused by hazards. In order to ensure environmental sustainability, a better understanding of natural disasters and their impacts is essential. It has been recognized that a holistic and integrated approach to environmental hazards needs to be attempted using common methodologies, such as risk analysis, which involves risk management and risk assessment. Indeed, risk management means reducing the threats posed by known hazards, whereas at the same time accepting unmanageable risks and maximizing any related benefits. The risk management framework involves evaluating the importance of a risk, either quantitatively or qualitatively. Risk assessment comprises three steps, namely risk identification (data base, event monitoring, statistical inference), risk estimation (magnitude, frequency, economic costs) and risk evaluation (cost-benefit analysis). Nevertheless, the risk management framework also includes a fourth step, risk governance, i.e. the need for a feedback of all the risk assessment undertakings. There is currently a lack of such feedback which constitutes a serious deficiency in the reduction of environmental hazards. This book emphasises methodological approaches and procedures of the three main components in the study of environmental hazards, namely forecasting - nowcasting (before), monitoring (during) and assessment (after), based on geoinformatic technologies and data and simulation through examples and case studies. These are considered within the risk management framework and, in particular, within the three components of risk assessment, namely risk identification, risk estimation and risk evaluation. This approach is a contemporary and innovative procedure and constitutes current research in the field of environmental hazards. Environmental Hazards Methodologies for Risk Assessment and Management covers hydrological hazards (floods, droughts, storms, hail, desertification), biophysical hazards (frost, heat waves, epidemics, forest fires), geological hazards (landslides, snow avalanches), tectonic hazards (earthquakes, volcanoes), and technological hazards. This book provides a text and a resource on environmental hazards for senior undergraduate students, graduate students on all courses related to environmental hazards and risk assessment and management. It is a valuable handbook for researchers and professionals of environmental science, environmental economics and management, and engineering. Editor: Nicolas R. Dalezios, University of Thessaly, Greece

This book is about the legal, economical, and practical assessment and management of risky activities arising from routine, catastrophic environmental and occupational exposures to hazardous agents. It includes a discussion of aspects of US and European Union law concerning risky activities, and then develops the economic analyses that are relevant to implementing choices within a supply and demand framework. The book also discusses exposure-response and time-series models used in assessing air and water pollution, as well as probabilistic cancer models, including toxicological compartmental, pharmaco-kinetic models and epidemiological relative risks and odds ratios-based models. Statistical methods to measure agreement, correlation and discordance are also developed. The methods and criteria of decision-analysis, including several measures of value of information (VOI) conclude the expositions. This book is an excellent text for students studying risk assessment and management.

Revised version of a background paper presented by the author to the Workshop on Comparative Risk Assessment of Environmental Hazards in an International Context, held at Woods Hole, Mass., March 31-April 4, 1975. Includes index. Bibliography: p. 101-107.

This document provides a national approach to environmental health risk assessment. The document presents a general environmental health risk assessment methodology applicable to the range of environmental health hazards.

QUANTITATIVE ENVIRONMENTAL RISK ANALYSIS FOR HUMAN HEALTH An updated edition of the foundational guide to environmental risk analysis Environmental risk analysis is a systematic process essential for the evaluation, management, and communication of the human health risk posed by the release of contaminants to the environment. Performed correctly, risk analysis is an essential tool in the protection of the public from the health hazards posed by chemical and radioactive contaminants. Cultivating the quantitative skills required to perform risk analysis competently is a critical need. Quantitative Environmental Risk Analysis for Human Health meets this need with a thorough, comprehensive coverage of the fundamental knowledge necessary to assess environmental impacts on human health. It introduces readers to a robust methodology for analyzing environmental risk, as well as to the fundamental principles of uncertainty analysis and the pertinent environmental regulations. Now updated to reflect the latest research and new cutting-edge methodologies, this is an essential contribution to the practice of environmental risk analysis. Readers of the second edition of Quantitative Environmental Risk Analysis for Human Health will also find: Detailed treatment of source and release characterization, contaminant migration, exposure assessment, and more New coverage of computer-based analytical methods A new chapter of case studies providing actual, real-world examples of environmental risk assessments Quantitative Environmental Risk Analysis for Human Health is must-have for graduate and advanced undergraduate students in civil engineering, environmental engineering, and environmental science, as well as for risk analysis practitioners in industry, environmental consultants, and regulators.

This is the first book to bring together comprehensive resources for understanding, eliminating and mitigating industrial risks, especially those associated with chemical production. A detailed understanding of risk analysis is essential in an era where governments and companies are increasingly aware of their health, safety and environmental responsibilities, yet resources are limited. This book covers all the fundamental concepts of risk analysis and ties them together with OSHA Process Safety Management and EPA Risk Management regulations. Using many examples and illustrations, it thoroughly reviews topics like: process descriptions, hazard identification, source models, fault tree analysis, consequence analysis, exposure assessment, and radiation risk assessment. There is also detailed coverage of the relationship between risk analysis and ISO 14000 standards. For: professional environmental safety, health and R&D professionals in government, communities, and chemical companies; or at storage and transportation facilities. Also for advanced students in risk analysis.

Much has already been written about risk assessment. Epidemiologists write books on how risk assessment is used to explore the factors that influence the distribution of disease in populations of people. Toxicologists write books on how risk assess ment involves exposing animals to risk agents and concluding from the results what risks people might experience if similarly exposed. Engineers write books on how risk assessment is utilized to estimate the risks of constructing a new facility such as a nuclear power plant. Statisticians write books on how risk assessment may be used to analyze mortality or accident data to determine risks. There are already many books on risk assessment-the trouble is that they all seem to be about different sUbjects! This book takes another approach. It brings together all the methods for assessing risk into a common framework, thus demonstrating how the various methods relate to one another. This produces four important benefits: • First, it provides a comprehensive reference for risk assessment. This one source offers readers concise explanations of the many methods currently available for describing and quantifying diverse types of risks. • Second, it consistently evaluates and compares available risk assessment methods and identifies their specific strengths and limitations. Understand ing the limitations of risk assessment methods is important. The field is still in its infancy, and the problems with available methods are disappoint ingly numerous. At the same time, risk assessment is being used.