Risk Assessment elements involved

It is important to clearly describe and quantitatively estimate the assumptions and uncertainties involved in the evaluation, where possible. Examples include natural variability in ecological characteristics and responses and uncertainties in the test system and extrapolations. The description and analysis of uncertainty in characterization of ecological effects are combined with uncertainty analyses for the other ecological risk assessment elements during risk characterization. 

At present the approach to assessing the potential risks of exposure to a chemical in the diet involves the application of a standardised risk assessment approach consisting of three main elements - hazard identification and characterisation and exposure assessment. 

The elements involved in risk assessment and risk management are depicted schematically in Figure 8.1. The procedure by which carcinogenic risk assessments are generally performed, and the ways in which data of the various types discussed above are utilized in performing such assessments have been reviewed elsewhere (Krewski and Brown, 1981), and are outlined below. 

Before discussing risk assessment techniques, it is worthwhile to review what produces hazards. A recent definition of an accident by W. G. Johnson, former General Manager of the National Safety Council professional staff and author of MORT Safety Assurance Systems, provides an excellent basis for determining what produces hazards. According to Mr. Johnson, the elements involved in an accident are ... 

Risk assessment and sediment quality criteria. Risk assessment does not necessarily represent an ordered sequence of elements involving the recognition of hazards, the measurement of impact and the comparison of the measurements. Rather, all possible combinations of elements exist in practice. Sediment quality criteria, among other approaches (see 6.3) use kinetic bioaccumulation models and bioaccumulation tests (Chapman et al., 1987)... 

There can be differences between countries in legislative demands for technical information. As these differences can lead to barriers to trade, considerable effort is being made to internationalize the common element, the hazard assessment, and, where possible, the risk assessment. Assessments of all the known (at a particular time) information on hazard are published by the WHO/Intemational Labour Office (ELO)/United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) as Environmental Health Criteria . (See also chapter by Watfa.) In addition, prediction of the hazards for chemicals requires the performance of tests and, especially when these tests involve the use of animal models, it is being seen increasingly as unethical to perform more experiments than scientifically necessary on animals. 

As already stressed, these techniques involve many analytical steps such as extraction, derivatization, separation and detection, which should be performed in such a way that decay of the unstable species does not occur. However, the control of the quality of measurements is often hampered by the lack of suitable reference materials for speciation analyses. Research is hence directed towards the development of new (if possible simple) analytical methods, the production of reference materials, and the monitoring of chemical species for various purposes (environmental risk assessment, toxicity studies, biogeochemical cycles of trace elements, etc.). 

From a business perspective, application of risk concepts involve two main elements. One is risk assessment. The other is risk management. Risk assessment involves methods that identify business risks. Among the business risks are safety and health risks for employees, customers, and the public. There are also risks to the equipment, property, and financial condition of a business. Risk management involves evaluating identified risks and making decisions about how to handle them from a business perspective. 

Although the steps in the risk assessment process seem quite simple, the procedures for applying risk assessment to chemicals becomes complicated. There are many points in the process requiring technical judgment. As a result, considerable knowledge and experience with the process are necessary to understand the many intricacies involved. The methods include many quantitative elements. ... 

The risk evaluation also includes the potential impact on vulnerable infrastructures (Wong et al., 1997). Vulnerability can be defined as the level of potential damage, or degree of loss, of a given element (0 to 1) subject to a hazard of a given intensity (Fell 1994). Vulnerability assessment therefore involves the interaction between a given hazard event and the element at risk. The vulnerability of element at risk can be expressed by (Uzielli et al., 2008 Kaynia et al., 2008) ... 

Risk assessment procedures in health and safety are legal requirements in most countries and also essential elements of the safety management systems, being they certified or not. In formal risk assessments, the risks are fisted based on their priority in terms of severity and likelihood of the possible accident. In spite of the fact that there is a subjective element involved in such estimation, the process will yield a rational basis for decisions to act on hazards encountered. Further, the follow-up assessments are giving estimates of residual risks for those risks counteracted, to complete the prevention with additional measures where needed. 

This author proposes that risk assessment be established as the core of an Occupation Risk Management System as a separately identified element following very early after the first element, which would be comparable to management leadership, commitment, demonstrated involvement, and accountability. 

While it will be necessary for all staff members to be aware of key elements within the arrangements section, namely actions in the event of fire, evacuation exercises and means of escape, specific personnel with allocated roles and responsibilities will need to have a far greater and in-depth knowledge of specific arrangements, e.g. for those involved with assisting the escape of disabled persons or those involved in conducting and reviewing fire risk assessments. 

The phenomenon risk obeys a necessary causation. According to the ISO 12100 standard, which is meant to explain the Machinery Directive (MD) 2006/42/EG for the practical design, the risk assessment is the combination of risk analysis and risk evaluation. Risk analysis subsumes specifying the machine s limits (e.g., spatial and temporal limit), identifying the hazards involved, and estimating the extent of damage and the probability of its incidence. The risk fH is thus defined as a two-dimensional variable (damage severity S and expected frequency EF) which due to the EF element features a time-dependence ... 

A corrosion index for pipeline risk evaluation. A risk assessment technique is described in much detail in the second edition of a popular book on pipeline risk management. The technique proposed in that book is based on subjective risk assessment, a method that is particularly well adapted to situations in which knowledge is perceived to be incomplete and judgment is often based on opinion, experience, intuition, and other nonquantifiable resources. A detailed schema relating an extensive description of all the elements involved in creating risk compensates for the fuzziness associated with the manipulation of nonquantifiable data. Figure 4.12 illustrates the basic pipeline risk assessment model or tool proposed in that book. 

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