Risk Assessment and Alternatives Assessment: Comparing Two Methodologies

The selection and use of chemicals and materials with less hazardous profiles reflects a paradigm shift from reliance on risk minimization through exposure controls to hazard avoidance. This article introduces risk assessment and alternatives assessment frameworks in order to clarify a misconception that alternatives assessment is a less effective tool to guide decision making, discusses factors promoting the use of each framework, and also identifies how and when application of each framework is most effective. As part of an assessor's decision process to select one framework over the other, it is critical to recognize that each framework is intended to perform different functions. Although the two frameworks share a number of similarities (such as identifying hazards and assessing exposure), an alternatives assessment provides a more realistic framework with which to select environmentally preferable chemicals because of its primary reliance on assessing hazards and secondary reliance on exposure assessment. Relevant to other life cycle impacts, the hazard of a chemical is inherent, and although it may be possible to minimize exposure (and subsequently reduce risk), it is challenging to assess such exposures through a chemical's life cycle. Through increased use of alternatives assessments at the initial stage of material or product design, there will be less reliance on post facto risk‐based assessment techniques because the potential for harm is significantly reduced, if not avoided, negating the need for assessing risk in the first place.     

Regional Risk Assessment for Point Source Pollution Based on a Water Quality Model of the Taipu River,China

Point source pollution is one of the main threats to regional environmental health. Based on a water quality model, a methodology to assess the regional risk of point source pollution is proposed. The assessment procedure includes five parts: (1) identifying risk source units and estimating source emissions using Monte Carlo algorithms; (2) observing hydrological and water quality data of the assessed area, and evaluating the selected water quality model; (3) screening out the assessment endpoints and analyzing receptor vulnerability with the Choquet fuzzy integral algorithm; (4) using the water quality model introduced in the second step to predict pollutant concentrations for various source emission scenarios and analyzing hazards of risk sources; and finally, (5) using the source hazard values and receptor vulnerability scores to estimate overall regional risk. The proposed method, based on the Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program (WASP), was applied in the region of the Taipu River, which is in the Taihu Basin, China. Results of source hazard and receptor vulnerability analysis allowed us to describe aquatic ecological, human health, and socioeconomic risks individually, and also integrated risks in the Taipu region, from a series of risk curves. Risk contributions of sources to receptors were ranked, and the spatial distribution of risk levels was presented. By changing the input conditions, we were able to estimate risks for a range of scenarios. Thus, the proposed procedure may also be used by decisionmakers for long‐term dynamic risk prediction.     

Assessment of Ecological Risks at Former Landfill Site Using TRIAD Procedure and Multicriteria Analysis

Old industrial landfills are important sources of environmental contamination in Europe, including Finland. In this study, we demonstrated the combination of TRIAD procedure, multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA), and statistical Monte Carlo analysis for assessing the risks to terrestrial biota in a former landfill site contaminated by petroleum hydrocarbons (PHCs) and metals. First, we generated hazard quotients by dividing the concentrations of metals and PHCs in soil by the corresponding risk‐based ecological benchmarks. Then we conducted ecotoxicity tests using five plant species, earthworms, and potworms, and determined the abundance and diversity of soil invertebrates from additional samples. We aggregated the results in accordance to the methods used in the TRIAD procedure, conducted rating of the assessment methods based on their performance in terms of specific criteria, and weighted the criteria using two alternative weighting techniques to produce performance scores for each method. We faced problems in using the TRIAD procedure, for example, the results from the animal counts had to be excluded from the calculation of integrated risk estimates (IREs) because our reference soil sample showed the lowest biodiversity and abundance of soil animals. In addition, hormesis hampered the use of the results from the ecotoxicity tests. The final probabilistic IREs imply significant risks at all sampling locations. Although linking MCDA with TRIAD provided a useful means to study and consider the performance of the alternative methods in predicting ecological risks, some uncertainties involved still remained outside the quantitative analysis.     

An integer programming method for the design of multi-criteria multi-action conservation plans

The design of conservation management plans is a crucial task for ensuring the preservation of ecosystems. A conservation plan is typically embodied by two types of decisions: in which areas of a given territory it will be implemented, and how actions against threats will be deployed across these areas. These decisions are usually guided by the resulting ecological benefit, their spatial effectiveness, and their implementation cost.In this paper, we propose a multi-criteria optimization framework, for modeling and solving a mixed integer programming characterization of a multi-action and multi-species conservation management design problem. The optimization tool seeks for a management plan that maximizes ecological benefit and minimizes spatial fragmentation, simultaneously, while ensuring an implementation cost no greater than a given budget.For showing the effectiveness of the methodology, we consider a case study corresponding to a portion of the Mitchell river catchment, located in northern Australia, where 31 freshwater fish species are affected by four threats.The attained results show how the methodology exploits the trade-offs among the ecological, spatial and cost criteria, enabling decision-makers to explore and analyze a broad range of conservation plans. Selecting conservation plans in a more informed way allows to obtain the best outcomes from a strategic and operational point of view.     

Risk-Based Approaches to Deal with Uncertainty in a Data-Poor System: Stakeholder Involvement in Hazard Identification for Marine National Parks and Marine Sanctuaries in Victoria, Australia

Management responsibilities for the system of marine national parks and sanctuaries declared in Victoria, Australia in 2002 have created imperatives for robust, scientifically defendable approaches to identifying threats to valued ecological attributes of the parks, setting management priorities, and developing monitoring systems. We are developing a protocol for ecological risk assessment in the parks that has due regard for the perception of risks by individuals, and ensures that stakeholder values are an intrinsic part of decision making. The inclusive and transparent protocol provides an opportunity for stakeholder involvement in the identification of valued attributes, as well as in the assessment of associated risks. Our approach brings together ideas about how science enters the community engagement domain in ways that promote collaboration and transparency in decision making. A series of stakeholder workshops across the state drew on the expertise of agency staff, community groups, fishers, industry representatives, academics, and knowledgeable park neighbors to identify hazards of major concern in the parks. Many hazards involved predictable, tangible threats like pollution and exotic species, but the approach also identified a number of less obvious threats related to governance issues and the knowledge-base for the parks. Importantly, the workshops with their broad range of stakeholders identified threats not previously considered by the management agency in its internal assessments, and several of these "new" threats are already the subject of action by the agency. The deliberate incorporation of local knowledge and local networks in the risk assessment process also provided opportunities for greater engagement of stakeholders with the management agency.     

Assessment and Application of National Environmental Databases and Mapping Tools at the Local Level to Two Community Case Studies

Communities are concerned over pollution levels and seek methods to systematically identify and prioritize the environmental stressors in their communities. Geographic information system (GIS) maps of environmental information can be useful tools for communities in their assessment of environmental‐pollution‐related risks. Databases and mapping tools that supply community‐level estimates of ambient concentrations of hazardous pollutants, risk, and potential health impacts can provide relevant information for communities to understand, identify, and prioritize potential exposures and risk from multiple sources. An assessment of existing databases and mapping tools was conducted as part of this study to explore the utility of publicly available databases, and three of these databases were selected for use in a community‐level GIS mapping application. Queried data from the U.S. EPA's National‐Scale Air Toxics Assessment, Air Quality System, and National Emissions Inventory were mapped at the appropriate spatial and temporal resolutions for identifying risks of exposure to air pollutants in two communities. The maps combine monitored and model‐simulated pollutant and health risk estimates, along with local survey results, to assist communities with the identification of potential exposure sources and pollution hot spots. Findings from this case study analysis will provide information to advance the development of new tools to assist communities with environmental risk assessments and hazard prioritization.     

Application of FISK,an Invasiveness Screening Tool for Non‐Native Freshwater Fishes,in the Murray‐Darling Basin (Southeastern Australia)

The Fish Invasiveness Scoring Kit (FISK) is currently one of the most popular pre‐screening tools for freshwater fishes. A recent upgrade has ensured its wider climatic relevance to countries with subtropical regions. This enhancement is of particular importance to Australia, which encompasses tropical, arid, and temperate zones, and where the introduction of non‐native fish species poses a significant risk to biodiversity. In this study, 55 fish species previously evaluated in a U.K.‐based calibration of FISK are reassessed for their potential invasiveness in the Murray‐Darling Basin (MDB; southeastern Australia), the continent's largest catchment encompassing arid and temperate climates. Approximately half of the species were classed as “medium risk” and the other half as “high risk,” and the ≥19 threshold previously identified from the calibration study was confirmed. The three highest scoring species (common carp Cyprinus carpio carpio, goldfish Carassius auratus, and eastern mosquitofish Gambusia holbrooki) were those already present and invasive in the area, whereas nearly half of the tropical and subtropical species had lower scores compared to U.K. assessments, possibly because of climate change predictions of drier conditions across the MDB. There were some discordances between FISK and two Australian‐based assessment protocols, one of which is qualitative and the other represents a simplified version of FISK. Notably, the Australian origins of FISK should provide for an additional reason for further applications of the tool in other RA areas (i.e., drainage basins) of the continent, ultimately encouraging adoption as the country's reference screening tool for management and conservation purposes.     

Quantitative Uncertainty Analysis for a Weed Risk Assessment System

Weed risk assessments (WRA) are used to identify plant invaders before introduction. Unfortunately, very few incorporate uncertainty ratings or evaluate the effects of uncertainty, a fundamental risk component. We developed a probabilistic model to quantitatively evaluate the effects of uncertainty on the outcomes of a question‐based WRA tool for the United States. In our tool, the uncertainty of each response is rated as Negligible, Low, Moderate, or High. We developed the model by specifying the likelihood of a response changing for each uncertainty rating. The simulations determine if responses change, select new responses, and sum the scores to determine the risk rating. The simulated scores reveal potential variation in WRA risk ratings. In testing with 204 species assessments, the ranges of simulated risk scores increased with greater uncertainty, and analyses for most species produced simulated risk ratings that differed from the baseline WRA rating. Still, the most frequent simulated rating matched the baseline rating for every High Risk species, and for 87% of all tested species. The remaining 13% primarily involved ambiguous Low Risk results. Changing final ratings based on the uncertainty analysis results was not justified here because accuracy (match between WRA tool and known risk rating) did not improve. Detailed analyses of three species assessments indicate that assessment uncertainty may be best reduced by obtaining evidence for unanswered questions, rather than obtaining additional evidence for questions with responses. This analysis represents an advance in interpreting WRA results, and has enhanced our regulation and management of potential weed species.     

The Architecture of Chemical Alternatives Assessment

Chemical alternatives assessment is a method rapidly developing for use by businesses, governments, and nongovernment organizations seeking to substitute chemicals of concern in production processes and products. Chemical alternatives assessment is defined as a process for identifying, comparing, and selecting safer alternatives to chemicals of concern (including those in materials, processes, or technologies) on the basis of their hazards, performance, and economic viability. The process is intended to provide guidance for assuring that chemicals of concern are replaced with safer alternatives that are not likely to be later regretted. Conceptually, the assessment methods are developed from a set of three foundational pillars and five common principles. Based on a number of emerging alternatives assessment initiatives, in this commentary, we outline a chemical alternatives assessment blueprint structured around three broad steps: Scope, Assessment, and Selection and Implementation. Specific tasks and tools are identified for each of these three steps. While it is recognized that on‐going practice will further refine and develop the method and tools, it is important that the structure of the assessment process remain flexible, adaptive, and focused on the substitution of chemicals of concern with safer alternatives.     

Aligning Chemical Assessment Tools Across the Hazard-Risk Continuum

With the growing number and diversity of hazard and risk assessment algorithms, models, databases, and frameworks for chemicals and their applications, risk assessors and managers are challenged to select the appropriate tool for a given need or decision. Some decisions require relatively simple tools to evaluate chemical hazards (e.g., toxicity), such as labeling for safe occupational handling and transport of chemicals. Others require assessment tools that provide relative comparisons among chemical properties, such as selecting the optimum chemical for a particular use among a group of candidates. Still other needs warrant full risk characterization, coupling both hazard and exposure considerations. Examples of these include new chemical evaluations for commercialization, evaluations of existing chemicals for novel uses, and assessments of the adequacy of risk management provisions. Even well-validated tools can be inappropriately applied, with consequences as severe as misguided chemical management, compromised credibility of the tool and its developers and users, and squandered resources. This article describes seven discrete categories of tools based on their information content, function, and the type of outputs produced. It proposes a systematic framework to assist users in selecting hazard and risk assessment tools for given applications. This analysis illustrates the importance of careful selection of assessment tools to achieve responsible chemical assessment communication and sound risk management.     

The [R]Evolving Relationship Between Risk Assessment and Risk Management

In Science and Decisions: Advancing Risk Assessment, the National Research Council recommends improvements in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's approach to risk assessment. The recommendations aim to increase the utility of these assessments, embedding them within a new risk‐based decision‐making framework. The framework involves first identifying the problem and possible options for addressing it, conducting related analyses, then reviewing the results and making the risk management decision. Experience with longstanding requirements for regulatory impact analysis provides insights into the implementation of this framework. First, neither the Science and Decisions framework nor the framework for regulatory impact analysis should be viewed as a static or linear process, where each step is completed before moving on to the next. Risk management options are best evaluated through an iterative and integrative procedure. The extent to which a hazard has been previously studied will strongly influence analysts’ ability to identify options prior to conducting formal analyses, and these options will be altered and refined as the analysis progresses. Second, experience with regulatory impact analysis suggests that legal and political constraints may limit the range of options assessed, contrary to both existing guidance for regulatory impact analysis and the Science and Decisions recommendations. Analysts will need to work creatively to broaden the range of options considered. Finally, the usefulness of regulatory impact analysis has been significantly hampered by the inability to quantify many health impacts of concern, suggesting that the scientific improvements offered within Science and Decisions will fill an crucial research gap.     

An Integrated Framework for Environmental Multi‐Impact Spatial Risk Analysis

Quantitative risk analysis is being extensively employed to support policymakers and provides a strong conceptual framework for evaluating decision alternatives under uncertainty. Many problems involving environmental risks are, however, of a spatial nature, i.e., containing spatial impacts, spatial vulnerabilities, and spatial risk‐mitigation alternatives. Recent developments in multicriteria spatial analysis have enabled the assessment and aggregation of multiple impacts, supporting policymakers in spatial evaluation problems. However, recent attempts to conduct spatial multicriteria risk analysis have generally been weakly conceptualized, without adequate roots in quantitative risk analysis. Moreover, assessments of spatial risk often neglect the multidimensional nature of spatial impacts (e.g., social, economic, human) that are typically occurring in such decision problems. The aim of this article is therefore to suggest a conceptual quantitative framework for environmental multicriteria spatial risk analysis based on expected multi‐attribute utility theory. The framework proposes: (i) the formal assessment of multiple spatial impacts; (ii) the aggregation of these multiple spatial impacts; (iii) the assessment of spatial vulnerabilities and probabilities of occurrence of adverse events; (iv) the computation of spatial risks; (v) the assessment of spatial risk mitigation alternatives; and (vi) the design and comparison of spatial risk mitigation alternatives (e.g., reductions of vulnerabilities and/or impacts). We illustrate the use of the framework in practice with a case study based on a flood‐prone area in northern Italy.     

Differentiating conflicts in beliefs versus value tradeoffs in the domestic intelligence policy debate

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, there has been an increase in public discussion regarding U.S. domestic intelligence activities. Domestic intelligence activities focus on gathering information about potential threats from individuals within the United States, and completely rational members of the public can have different opinions about the acceptability of various alternatives depending on one's values toward privacy, civil liberty, and security. Past studies have demonstrated that construction of a multiobjective value model can help clarify public values in controversial risk debates. This research explores a range of domestic intelligence alternatives that vary on multiple objectives, and applies value-focused thinking to develop a multiattribute utility model to evaluate and compare the alternatives. The process demonstrates the feasibility of eliciting model parameters from individuals and provides a method for identifying the locus of possible disagreements among individuals. The development of the model is described first, followed by insights found from participants who provided both value tradeoffs and performance scores for six different domestic intelligence alternatives. The participants were two student groups and a group of police officers. The analysis showed differences among weights for an additive model for different stakeholder groups and differences among the performance scores. In particular, there is a "halo" effect for alternatives, such that its supporters ranked the alternative higher on all attributes compared to respondents who find the alternative unacceptable. This modeling approach and results offer organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security insights into the debate surrounding new policy initiatives, particularly those requiring sensitive value tradeoffs.     

Risk Assessment for Invasive Species

Although estimates vary, there is a broad agreement that invasive species impose major costs on the U.S. economy, as well as posing risks to nonmarket environmental goods and services and to public health. The domestic effort to manage risks associated with invasive species is coordinated by the National Invasive Species Council (NISC), which is charged with developing a science-based process to evaluate risks associated with the introduction and spread of invasive species. Various international agreements have also elevated invasive species issues onto the international policy agenda. The World Trade Organization (WTO) Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement establishes rights and obligations to adhere to the discipline of scientific risk assessment to ensure that SPS measures are applied only to the extent required to protect human, animal, and plant health, and do not constitute arbitrary or unjustifiable technical barriers to trade. Currently, however, the field of risk assessment for invasive species is in its infancy. Therefore, there is a pressing need to formulate scientifically sound methods and approaches in this emerging field, while acknowledging that the demand for situation-specific empirical evidence is likely to persistently outstrip supply. To begin addressing this need, the Society for Risk Analysis Ecological Risk Assessment Specialty Group and the Ecological Society of America Theoretical Ecology Section convened a joint workshop to provide independent scientific input into the formulation of methods and processes for risk assessment of invasive species to ensure that the analytic processes used domestically and internationally will be firmly rooted in sound scientific principles.     

Improving Risk-Based Decision Making for Terrorism Applications

How can we best allocate limited defensive resources to reduce terrorism risks? Dillon et al.'s Antiterrorism Risk-Based Decision Aid (ARDA) system provides a useful point of departure for addressing this crucial question by exhibiting a real-world system that calculates risk reduction scores for different portfolios of risk-reducing countermeasures and using them to rank-order different possible risk mitigation alternatives for Navy facilities. This comment points out some potential limitations of any scoring system that does not take into account risk externalities, interdependencies among threats, uncertainties that are correlated across targets, and attacker responses to alternative allocations of defensive resources. In at least some simple situations, allocations based on risk reduction scores and comparisons can inadvertently increase risks by providing intelligent attackers with valuable information, or they can fail to reduce risks as effectively as nonscoring, optimization-based approaches. These limitations of present scoring methods present exciting technical challenges and opportunities for risk analysts to develop improved methods for protecting facilities and infrastructure against terrorist threats.     

Is Epidemiology the Key to Cumulative Risk Assessment?

Although cumulative risk assessment by definition evaluates the joint effects of chemical and nonchemical stressors, studies to date have not considered both dimensions, in part because toxicological studies cannot capture many stressors of interest. Epidemiology can potentially include all relevant stressors, but developing and extracting the necessary information is challenging given some of the inherent limitations of epidemiology. In this article, I propose a conceptual framework within which epidemiological studies could be evaluated for their inclusion into cumulative risk assessment, including a problem formulation/planning and scoping step that focuses on stressors meaningful for risk management decisions, extension of the chemical mixtures framework to include nonchemical stressors, and formal consideration of vulnerability characteristics of the population. In the long term, broadening the applicability and informativeness of cumulative risk assessment will require enhanced communication and collaboration between epidemiologists and risk assessors, in which the structure of social and environmental epidemiological analyses may be informed in part by the needs of cumulative risk assessment.     

A multi-criteria ranking algorithm (MCRA) for determining breast cancer therapy

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among women. The selection of an effective, patient-specific treatment plan for breast cancer has been a challenge for physicians because the decision process involves a vast number of treatment alternatives as well as treatment decision criteria, such as the stage of the cancer (e.g., in situ, invasive, metastasis), tumor characteristics, biomarker-related risks, and patient-related risks. Furthermore, every patient's case is unique, requiring a patient-specific treatment plan, while there is no standard procedure even for a particular stage of the breast cancer. In this paper, we first determine a comprehensive set of criteria for selecting the best breast cancer therapy by interviewing medical oncologists and reviewing the literature. We then present two analytical hierarchy process (AHP) models for quantifying the weights of criteria for breast cancer treatment in two sequential steps: primary and secondary treatment therapy. Using the weights of criteria from the AHP model, we propose a new multi-criteria ranking algorithm (MCRA), which evaluates a large variety of patient scenarios and provides the best patient-tailored breast cancer treatment alternatives based on the input of nine medical oncologists. We then validate the predictions of the multi-criteria ranking algorithm by comparing treatment ranks of the algorithm with ranks of five different oncologists, and show that algorithm rankings match or are statistically significantly correlated with the overall expert ranking in most cases. Our multi-criteria ranking algorithm could be used as an accessible decision-support tool to aid oncologists and educate patients for determining appropriate and effective treatment alternatives for breast cancer. Our approach is also general in the sense that it could be adapted to solve other complex decision-making problems in medicine, healthcare, as well as other service and manufacturing industries.     

Risk Modeling, Assessment, and Management of Lahar Flow Threat

The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines is considered one of the most violent and destructive volcanic activities in the 20th century. Lahar is the Indonesian term for volcanic ash, and lahar flows resulting from the massive amount of volcanic materials deposited on the mountain's slope posed continued post-eruption threats to the surrounding areas, destroying lives, homes, agricultural products, and infrastructures. Risks of lahar flows were identified immediately after the eruption, with scientific data provided by the Philippine Institute of Volcanology, the U.S. Geological Survey, and other research institutions. However, competing political, economic, and social agendas subordinated the importance of scientific information to policy making. Using systemic risk analysis and management, this article addresses the issues of multiple objectives and the effective integration of scientific techniques into the decision-making process. It provides a modeling framework for identifying, prioritizing, and evaluating policies for managing risk. The major considerations are: (1) applying a holistic approach to risk analysis through hierarchical holographic modeling, (2) applying statistical methods to gain insight into the problem of uncertainty in risk assessment, (3) using multiobjective trade-off analysis to address the issue of multiple decisionmakers and stakeholders in the decision-making process, (4) using the conditional expected value of extreme events to complement and supplement the expected value in quantifying risk, and (5) assessing the impacts of multistage decisions. Numerical examples based on ex post data are formulated to illustrate applications to various problems. The resulting framework from this study can serve as a general baseline model for assessing and managing risks of natural disasters, which the Philippines' lead agency-the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC)-and other related organizations can use for their decision-making processes.     

Life-Cycle Assessment in Relation to Risk Assessment: An Evolving Perspective

A life-cycle approach takes a cradle-to-grave perspective of a product's numerous activities from the raw material extraction to final disposal. There have been recent efforts to develop life-cycle assessment (LCA) to assess both environmental and human health issues. The question then arises: what are the capabilities of LCA, especially in relation to risk assessment? To address this question, this paper first describes the LCA mass-based accounting system and then analyzes the use of this approach for environmental and human health assessment. The key LCA limitations in this respect are loss of spatial, temporal, dose-response, and threshold information. These limitations affect LCA's capability to assess several environmental issues, and human health in particular. This leads to the conclusion that LCA impact assessment does not predict or measure actual effects, quantitate risks, or address safety. Instead, LCA uses mass loadings with simplifying assumptions and subjective judgments to add independent effects and exposures into an overall score. As a result, LCA identifies possible human health issues on a systemwide basis from a worst case, hypothetical hazard perspective. Ideally, the identified issues would then be addressed by more detailed assessment methods, such as risk assessment.     

Scenarios,Real Options and Integrated Risk Management

In the 1970s, scenario planning gained prominence as a strategic management tool. Scenario planning encourages managers to envision plausible future states of the world and consider how to take advantage of opportunities and avoid potential threats. In the last decade, finance researchers have developed real option analysis as a way to value investments under uncertainty. Scenario planning and real option analysis have complementary strengths and weaknesses as tools for managers making strategic investment decisions under uncertainty. We combine these two approaches in an integrated risk management process. This process involves scenario development, exposure identification, formulating risk management responses, and implementation steps. We advocate a corporate-level perspective on managing risk that takes into consideration the full range of exposures across a firm’s portfolio of businesses. In contrast with the predominant emphasis on quantitative analysis in the real option literature, this study illustrates qualitative assessment of real options.