Environmental Standards

Lack of knowledge about, and noncompliance with, international standards can result in loss of sales and partnership opportunities as well as possible legal action. The International Environmental Standards Handbook provides the necessary historical background to understand the current status of international environmental standards. It contains copies of available treaties and provides coverage of laws and standards. The book offers strategies for designing and implementing environmental systems that will be internationally accepted. It includes a list of information sources and a directory of international environmental organizations.

This book provides a critical perspective on several interconnected themes that relate to the implementation of both domestic and international environmental standards. What are the direct and indirect costs and benefits of these standards? What is the political economy structure that governs their implementation? Do environmental standards affect individuals and economic sectors in different ways? How do environmental standards interact with trade patterns in an ever-globalised world? Understanding the multidimensional effects of environmental standards is crucial for the establishment of effective environmental and development policies. The book presents our current state of knowledge for the issues presented, while also drawing policy insights from a WTO project (on phytosanitary standards) the authors undertook in four Sub-Sahara African countries (Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya and Mozambique).

It is not uncommon that a group of scientists from many different disciplines join a working group, discuss a topic of interest and edit a volume of articles related to this topic. They may even agree on a jointly written introduction or conclusion . The study group "Environmental Standards" established in 1987 as an expert panel of the German Academy of Sciences and Technology in Berlin broke with that common tradition and became involved in a fascinating, but also pain-staking experiment to compose a document on setting environmental standards that has been literally written and authorized by all group members. The group consisted of eleven individuals representing the following disciplines: physics, chemistry, biology, engineering , law , psychology, and sociology/economics. The study group had two major goals: First, to provide a document that summarizes the state of the art in each discipline with respect to the topic of environmental standards. Since it is impossible to cover all environmental hazards in one book, the panel members agreed to limit the discussion of the scientific material to one major case study: the effects of ionizing radiation. This topic was selected because the scientific data base is well developed in this area and levels of anthropogenic release can be compared with natural background levels . These two conditions are rarely met by most chemical hazards.

Environmental Regulations and Standard Setting is a component of Encyclopedia of Environmental and Ecological Sciences, Engineering and Technology Resources in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. Environmental regulation and the setting of environmental standards is concerned with command-and-control standards and regulations to control most of the pollutants generated by anthropogenic activities impacting on the three main environmental compartments: air, water, and land (including waste). Methods of regulatory control are described along with all major associated issues, including criteria for standard setting, enforcement of standards, public participation, and the deficiencies of conventional standards and regulations in securing the sustainability of earth's natural environmental capital. The Theme is organized into four different topics which represent the main scientific areas of the theme: The first topic, the need for environmental regulation and standards, problems encountered in setting standards, and the major deficiencies of environmental standards vis-à-vis environmental sustainability are discussed in this topic. The succeeding two topics are Environmental Quality Standards; Source-Oriented Control of Pollution; The fourth topic, the two prevailing types of standards are discussed — ecologically-based standards whose main purpose is to limit the degradation caused to ecosystems by anthropogenic activities, and health-based standards which focus on minimizing the adverse environmental impacts on human health. This volume is aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College Students, Educators, Professional Practitioners, Research Personnel and Policy Analysts, Managers, and Decision Makers and NGOs.

The rapid growth of the world population - nearly six-fold over the last hundred years - combined with the rising number of technical installations especially in the industrialized countries has lead to ever tighter and more strained living spaces on our planet. Because ofthe inevitable processes oflife, man was at first an exploiter rather than a careful preserver of the environment. Environmental awareness with the intention to conserve the environment has grown only in the last few decades. Environmental standards have been defined and limit values have been set largely guided, however, by scientific and medical data on single exposures, while public opinion, on the other hand, now increasingly calls for astronger consideration of the more complex situations following combined exposures. Furthermore, it turned out that environmental standards, while necessarily based on scientific data, must also take into account ethical, legal, economic, and sociological aspects. A task of such complexity can only be dealt with appropriately in the framework of an inter disciplinary group.

Introducing a novel approach to setting environmental pollution standards that allow for proper treatment of uncertainty and variation, this book surveys the forms of standards and proposes a new kind of "statistically verifiable ideal standard." Setting Environmental Standards includes: a current analysis regarding the treatment of uncertainty and variation in environmental standard setting a review of basic principles in standard setting, including costs, actions and effects, and benefits examples where uncertainty and variation have been well-treated in current practice as well as examples where clear deficiencies are apparent specific proposals for the future approach to setting environmental pollution standards - encompassing the anticipated elements of uncertainty and variability The issues discussed serve statisticians as well as those persons involved with environmental standards. Scientists in agencies responsible for setting standards, in organizations advising such agencies or working in industries subject to these standards, will find Setting Environmental Standards an invaluable reference.