Risk assessment environmental risks

In broad terms risk assessments are carried out to examine the effects of an agent on humans (Health Risk Assessment) and ecosystems (Ecological Risk Assessment). Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA) is the examination of risks resulting from technology that threaten ecosystems, animals and people. It includes human health risk assessments, ecological or ecotoxicological risk assessments, and specific industrial applications of risk assessment that examine end-points in people, biota or ecosystems. 

Assessing environmental risk from effluent diseharges or for formal environmental impaet assessment. 

D. Pauslenbach, "The Risk Assessment, Environmental and Human Health, Jolm Wiley Sons. New York City, 1985. 

There are many models for assessing risks to human health and/or the environment. Some of them are multimedia models, which assess the exposure and risks in different environmental matrices, such as soil, air, water, and food chains with different degrees of complexity within each medium. Conversely, others are more specific with regard to a medium or a system (e.g., river or food chain). Other models assess only human health risks or environmental risks, while some assess both risks. Based on the type of scenario that is studied, an appropriate model will be chosen. 

Center for Environmental Carcinogenesis and Risk Assessment, Environmental Protection and Health Prevention Agency - Emilia Romagna Region, Viale Filopanti 20, 40126 Bologna, Italy... 

US Environmental Protection Agency (20002). OPP Revised OP Risk Assessment -Cumulative Risk From Pesticides in Foods. l.C.l—1.C.24. 

The development of a new environmental quality objective with the aim to preserve the biologic community, both in its functional and structural features, leads to the need for more refined and sensitive approaches for assessing environmental risk. The main issues and milestones established in the WFD are indicated... 

EPA. 1988a. Recommendations for and documentation of biological values for use in risk assessment. Environmental Criteria and Assessment Office, Office of Health and Environmental Assessment, Office of Research and Development, Cincinnati, OH. 

De Roode, D. F. Assessing environmental risk of pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceutical Technology Europe, 22(6) 2010, 37-40. 

Williams, T.M., Rawlins, B.G., Smith, B. and Breward, N. (1998) In-vitro determination of arsenic bioavailability in contaminated soil and mineral beneflciation waste from Ron Phibun, southern Thailand a basis for improved human risk assessment. Environmental Geochemistry and Health, 20(4), 169-77. 

In assessing environmental risks, however, the lack of specificity can be not so crucial. It might be more interesting to get information on the possibility of mobilisation or on bioavailability of PTMs than to identify the exact chemical species of metals in soil. It could be not so important to know whether the metals come from sulphides or organic matter, but could be more useful to know that they can be released under reducing or oxidising conditions . 

The book is based on contributions from thirty-five scientists, regulators, and policy makers from eleven countries with individual expertise across disciplines such as risk assessment, environmental, health, economic, and social sciences. These scientists summarize current knowledge on aquatic and terrestrial environmental quality standards, placing these standards in a wider socioeconomic and regulatory context. The book explains how to derive environmental standards that are defensible from a scientific and socioeconomic perspective. Using multidisciplinary techniques applicable to water, sediments, and soils, the text demonstrates how to select the best form and derivation method relative to individual environmental standards. 

In a sense, we can say we have developed a system to assess environmental risk situations and are responding to those assessments with decisions reached in a deliberate and disciplined manner. The confidence we have in the system is built on the premise that we know it is directionally correct with its overall objective being to reduce risks. Moreover, the response decisions called for in the process result from evaluating all the available scientific information along with all the pertinent values and judgments that can be brought to bear. 

US PCCRARM] Presidential/Congressional Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management. 1997. Framework for environmental health risk management. Washington (DC) US Presidential/Congressional Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management. 

Forbes V.E., Calow P., Sibly R.M. (2001) Are current species extrapolation models a good basis for ecological risk assessment Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 20(2) 442-447. 

Wilding J., Maltby L. (2006) Relative toxicological importance of aqueous and dietary metal exposure to a freshwater crustacean implications for risk assessment. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 25(7) 795-1801. 

When designating which ministry is to have primary responsibility for chemicals control, familiarity with legislation of relevance for the management of chemical risks is of importance. Therefore, countries often confer responsibility for chemicals legislation on ministries of the environment or ministries of health. Ministries of the environment (or the like) may be preferable due to the fact that issues of risk assessment and risk management in general, as well as for chemicals, are frequently dealt with in these ministries (air, water and soil pollution, waste problems). Furthermore, modem chemicals control at an international level, in addition to focusing on health problems, focuses very much on environmental risks and environmentally mediated health risks, such as problems with POPs. 

Goldstein BD. 1985. Risk assessment and risk management of benzene by the Environmental Protection Agency. In Risk quantitation and regulatory policy, Banbury Report 19 293-304. 

There is little doubt that the identification and control of hazardous chemicals is necessary to protect human health and the environment. An assessment of the occupational health benefits of REACH estimates that improved chemical risk assessment and risk management can reduce compensation for worker-related illness by between 18 and 54 billion over a 30-year period [190]. The long-term benefits of improved environmental protection resulting from the identification of hazardous chemicals under REACH (e.g., avoided costs for carrying out environmental remediation) can readily result in savings of hundreds of million Euro per substance [190]. Based on World Bank estimates that chemicals and chemical pollution causes between 0.6% and 2.5% of diseases in developed countries, the European Commission calculated a saving of 50 billion on health and medical care within the EU over 30 years could result if REACH can reduce the occurrence of disease by 0.1% [282]. 

Germany does not have an official chemicals policy, nor is a chemicals policy available from any of the Ministries. The only publicly available document specifically relating to national chemicals policy is a report on the Precautionary Risk Assessment and Risk Management of Chemicals produced by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). The UBA report does not appear to receive strong support from the ministries as it fails to appear on the Ministry for the Environment s website, although an interviewee stated that the UBA has to receive permission prior to any official publication. It is not unusual for the Ministry for Environment and the UBA to form separate environmental policy [370]. Neither is it uncommon for the UBA staff to publicly criticise the concepts put forward by the ministry [370]. 

Department of Environment (DOE). 1995. A Guide to Risk Assessment and Risk Management for Environmental Protection. London HMSO. 

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