Confluence and Contours: Reflexive Management of Environmental Risk

Government institutions have responsibilities to distribute risk management funds meaningfully and to be accountable for their choices. We took a macro‐level sociological approach to understanding the role of government in managing environmental risks, and insights from micro‐level psychology to examine individual‐level risk‐related perceptions and beliefs. Survey data from 2,068 U.K. citizens showed that lay people's funding preferences were associated positively with beliefs about responsibility and trust, yet associations with perception varied depending on risk type. Moreover, there were risk‐specific differences in the funding preferences of the lay sample and 29 policymakers. A laboratory‐based study of 109 participants examined funding allocation in more detail through iterative presentation of expert information. Quantitative and qualitative data revealed a meso‐level framework comprising three types of decisionmakers who varied in their willingness to change funding allocation preferences following expert information: adaptors, responders, and resistors. This research highlights the relevance of integrated theoretical approaches to understanding the policy process, and the benefits of reflexive dialogue to managing environmental risks.     

A Process for Incorporating Comparative Risk into Environmental Policymaking in Louisiana

The goal of Louisiana's 1990–1991 comparative risk project, also called the Louisiana Environmental Action Plan (LEAP), was to incorporate risk assessment into state environmental planning and policymaking. Scientists, government officials, and citizens were brought together to estimate the relative risk to human health, natural resources, and quality of life posed by 33 selected environmental issues. The issues were then ranked according to their relative estimated risks. It was hoped that this ranking of "comparative risks" would enable state policymakers to target the most important environmental problems and allocate scarce public resources more rationally and efficiently. As a result of the project, the governor issued an Executive Order forming a permanent Public Advisory Committee to continue this type of comparative risk assessment in Louisiana.     

Assessing Risk in Graphically Presented Financial Series

It has been argued that traders use their natural sensitivity to the fractal properties of price graphs to assess risk and that they are better able to do this when given price change as well as price level information. This approach implies that risk assessments should be higher when the Hurst exponents are lower, that this relationship should be stronger in the presence of price change information and that risk assessment should depend more strongly on the Hurst exponent than on the standard deviation of the series. Participants in Experiment 1 decided which of two assets was riskier by inspecting graphs of their price series. Graphs with lower Hurst exponents were selected only by those who were less emotionally stable and hence more sensitive to risk. However, when both price series and price change series were presented, the assets with lower Hurst exponents were selected by all participants. In a second experiment, participants were given both price level and price change series for a number of assets and rated the risk of trading in each one. Ratings depended more strongly on Hurst exponents than on other measures of volatility. They also depended on indicators of potential loss. Human risk assessment deviates from the way that risk is measured in modern finance theory: it requires integration of information relevant to both uncertainty and loss aversion, thereby imposing high attentional demands on traders. These demands may impair risk assessment but they can be eased by adding displays of price change information.     

Flood Risk Management: US Army Corps of Engineers and Layperson Perceptions

Recent severe storm experiences in the U.S. Gulf Coast illustrate the importance of an integrated approach to flood preparedness planning that harmonizes stakeholder and agency efforts. Risk management decisions that are informed by and address decision maker and stakeholder risk perceptions and behavior are essential for effective risk management policy. A literature review and two expert models/mental models studies were undertaken to identify areas of importance in the flood risk management process for layperson, non‐USACE‐expert, and two USACE‐expert groups. In characterizing and mapping stakeholder beliefs about risks in the literature onto current risk management practice, recommendations for accommodating and changing stakeholder perceptions of flood risks and their management are identified. Needs of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) flood preparedness and response program are discussed in the context of flood risk mental models.     

Risk Management for Development—Assessing Obstacles and Prioritizing Action

Throughout the process of economic and social development, decisionmakers from the household to the state level are confronted with a multitude of risks: from health and employment risks, to financial and political crises, as well as environmental damages and from the local to global level. The World Bank's 2014 World Development Report (WDR) provides an in‐depth analysis of how the management of such risks can be improved. In particular, it argues that a proactive and integrated approach to risk management can create opportunities for fighting poverty and achieving prosperity—but also acknowledges substantial obstacles to its implementation in practice. This article presents and discusses these obstacles with respect to their causes, consequences, interlinkages, and solutions. In particular, these include obstacles to individual risk management, the obstacles that are beyond the control of individuals and thus require collective action, and, finally, the obstacles that affect the ability of governments and public authorities to manage risks. From these obstacles, this article derives a policy roadmap for the development of risk management strategies that are designed not only around the risk they have to cope with, but also around the practical obstacles to policy implementation.     

Different Roles and Viewpoints of Scientific Experts in Advising on Environmental Health Risks

Environmental health risks are often complex, largescale, and uncertain. The uncertainties inherent in these problems permit differences among experts in the appraisal of risks. This raises the question of whether different expert roles exist and, if so, how this affects the policy advice that is given. Here, we present a pilot study of the different roles and viewpoints that can be discerned among scientific experts in the Netherlands. Q methodology was used to empirically explore existing theoretical treatises on different expert roles. In total, 26 electromag­netic field (EMF) experts and 21 particulate matter (PM) experts participated. The responses were analyzed separately for EMF and PM respondents using Q factor analysis. In both the EMF and PM domain, three different expert roles were identified. This suggests that particular expert roles depend on the specific environmental health risk. The results indicate that different expert roles exist among scientists who provide policy advice on environmental health risks. This empirical study adds new data and insights to the literature on expert roles. The results of this study are relevant for the selection and composition of expert committees and the interpretation of expert advice.     

Development of a Preliminary Framework for Informing the Risk Analysis and Risk Management of Nanoparticles

Decisions are often made even when there is uncertainty about the possible outcomes. However, methods for making decisions with uncertainty in the problem framework are scarce. Presently, safety assessment for a product containing engineered nano-scale particles is a very poorly structured problem. Many fields of study may inform the safety assessment of such particles (e.g., ultrafines, aerosols, debris from medical devices), but engineered nano-scale particles may present such unique properties that extrapolating from other types of studies may introduce, and not resolve, uncertainty. Some screening-level health effects studies conducted specifically on engineered nano-scale materials have been published and many more are underway. However, it is clear that the extent of research needed to fully and confidently understand the potential for health or environmental risk from engineered nano-scale particles may take years or even decades to complete. In spite of the great uncertainty, there is existing research and experience among researchers that can help to provide a taxonomy of particle properties, perhaps indicating a relative likelihood of risk, in order to prioritize nanoparticle risk research. To help structure this problem, a framework was developed from expert interviews of nanotechnology researchers. The analysis organizes the information as a system based on the risk assessment framework, in order to support the decision about safety. In the long term, this framework is designed to incorporate research results as they are generated, and therefore serve as a tool for estimating the potential for human health and environmental risk.     

The NAS Risk Paradigm as a Medium for Communication

Many journalists, public interest groups and other recipients of risk assessment information are familiar with the National Academy of Sciences risk assessment paradigm. From time to time, paradigm concepts appear in news features or community group discussions on environmental issues. With knowledge of the paradigm common to scientists, journalists, and other interested parties, the paradigm is a potentially important medium for communication between risk scientists, journalists, and the public. Specifically, the paradigm offers widely-accepted organizing principles for presenting risk information, a common language for addressing a variety of issues and concepts, and a flexible analytical system that accommodates the diversity of scientific information and policy perspectives that characterize the risk assessment process. In addition, the paradigm outlines important relationships and distinctions between risk assessment and risk management. Informed and creative use of these features of the paradigm can guide and simplify interviews between journalists or community groups and their expert sources, clarify presentation of risk information, and promote collaboration between risk scientists, journalists, and others to assure complete, objective and fair comment on risk issues of interest to the public.     

Comparative Risk and Policy Analysis in Environmental Health

There is increasing interest in the integration of quantitative risk analysis with benefit-cost and cost-effectiveness methods to evaluate environmental health policy making and perform comparative analyses. However, the combined use of these methods has revealed deficiencies in the available methods, and the lack of useful analytical frameworks currently constrains the utility of comparative risk and policy analyses. A principal issue in integrating risk and economic analysis is the lack of common performance metrics, particularly when conducting comparative analyses of regulations with disparate health endpoints (e.g., cancer and noncancer effects or risk-benefit analysis) and quantitative estimation of cumulative risk, whether from exposure to single agents with multiple health impacts or from exposure to mixtures. We propose a general quantitative framework and examine assumptions required for performing analyses of health risks and policies. We review existing and proposed risk and health-impact metrics for evaluating policies designed to protect public health from environmental exposures, and identify their strengths and weaknesses with respect to their use in a general comparative risk and policy analysis framework. Case studies are presented to demonstrate applications of this framework with risk-benefit and air pollution risk analyses. Through this analysis, we hope to generate discussions regarding the data requirements, analytical approaches, and assumptions required for general models to be used in comparative risk and policy analysis.     

Risk Analysis of the Vessel Traffic in the Strait of Istanbul

The Strait of Istanbul, the narrow waterway separating Europe from Asia, holds a strategic importance in maritime transportation as it links the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. It is considered as one of the world's most congested and difficult-to-navigate waterways. Over 55,000 transit vessels pass through the Strait annually, roughly 20% of which carry dangerous cargo. In this study, we have analyzed safety risks pertaining to transit vessel maritime traffic in the Strait of Istanbul and proposed ways to mitigate them. Safety risk analysis was performed by incorporating a probabilistic accident risk model into the simulation model. A mathematical risk model was developed based on probabilistic arguments regarding instigators, situations, accidents, consequences, and historical data, as well as subject-matter expert opinions. Scenario analysis was carried out to study the behavior of the accident risks, with respect to changes in the surrounding geographical, meteorological, and traffic conditions. Our numerical investigations suggested some significant policy indications. Local traffic density and pilotage turned out to be two main factors affecting the risks at the Strait of Istanbul. Results further indicate that scheduling changes to allow more vessels into the Strait will increase risks to extreme levels. Conversely, scheduling policy changes that are opted to reduce risks may cause major increases in average vessel waiting times. This in turn signifies that the current operations at the Strait of Istanbul have reached a critical level beyond which both risks and vessel delays are unacceptable.     

Prioritizing Environmental Health Risks in the UAE

This article presents the results of a comparative environmental risk‐ranking exercise that was conducted in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to inform a strategic planning process led by the Environment Agency‐Abu Dhabi (EAD). It represents the first national‐level application of a deliberative method for comparative risk ranking first published in this journal. The deliberative method involves a five‐stage process that includes quantitative risk assessment by experts and deliberations by groups of stakeholders. The project reported in this article considered 14 categories of environmental risks to health identified through discussions with EAD staff: ambient and indoor air pollution; drinking water contamination; coastal water pollution; soil and groundwater contamination; contamination of fruits, vegetables, and seafood; ambient noise; stratospheric ozone depletion; electromagnetic fields from power lines; health impacts from climate change; and exposure to hazardous substances in industrial, construction, and agricultural work environments. Results from workshops involving 73 stakeholders who met in five separate groups to rank these risks individually and collaboratively indicated strong consensus that outdoor and indoor air pollution are the highest priorities in the UAE. Each of the five groups rated these as being among the highest risks. All groups rated soil and groundwater contamination as being among the lowest risks. In surveys administered after the ranking exercises, participants indicated that the results of the process represented their concerns and approved of using the ranking results to inform policy decisions. The results ultimately shaped a strategic plan that is now being implemented.     

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.     

Characterizing Environmental Harm: Developments in an Approach to Strategic Risk Assessment and Risk Management

Environmental policymakers and regulators are often in the position of having to prioritize their actions across a diverse range of environmental pressures to secure environmental protection and improvements. Information on environmental issues to inform this type of strategic analysis can be disparate; it may be too voluminous or even absent. Data on a range of issues are rarely presented in a common format that allows easy analysis and comparison. Nevertheless, judgments are required on the significance of various environmental pressures and on the inherent uncertainties to inform strategic assessments such as “state of the environment” reports. How can decisionmakers go about this type of strategic and comparative risk analysis? In an attempt to provide practical tools for the analysis of environmental risks at a strategic level, the Environment Agency of England and Wales has conducted a program of developmental research on strategic risk assessment since 1996. The tools developed under this program use the concept of “environmental harm” as a common metric, viewed from technical, social, and economic perspectives, to analyze impacts from a range of environmental pressures. Critical to an informed debate on the relative importance of these perspectives is an understanding and analysis of the various characteristics of harm (spatial and temporal extent, reversibility, latency, etc.) and of the social response to actual or potential environmental harm from a range of hazards. Recent developments in our approach, described herein, allow a presentation of the analysis in a structured fashion so as to better inform risk‐management decisions.     

Risk–risk governance in a low-carbon future: Exploring institutional,technological, and behavioral tradeoffs in climate geoengineering pathways

Deliberations are underway to utilize increasingly radical technological options to help address climate change and stabilize the climatic system. Collectively, these options are often referred to as “climate geoengineering.” Deployment of such options, however, can create wicked tradeoffs in governance and require adaptive forms of risk management. In this study, we utilize a large and novel set of qualitative expert interview data to more deeply and systematically explore the types of risk–risk tradeoffs that may emerge from the use of 20 different climate geoengineering options, 10 that focus on carbon dioxide or greenhouse gas removal, and 10 that focus on solar radiation management and reflecting sunlight. We specifically consider: What risks does the deployment of these options entail? What types of tradeoffs may emerge through their deployment? We apply a framework that clusters risk–risk tradeoffs into institutional and governance, technological and environmental, and behavioral and temporal dimensions. In doing so, we offer a more complete inventory of risk–risk tradeoffs than those currently available within the respective risk-assessment, energy-systems, and climate-change literatures, and we also point the way toward future research gaps concerning policy, deployment, and risk management.     

Knowledge and Risk Perception Among Nuclear Power Plant Employees

This is a study of knowledge, risk perception, and attitudes among nuclear power plant employees. A total of 236 persons participated, belonging to 10 different professional groups and working at two Swedish power plants. Job-related radiation risks were judged about average as compared to a number of other risks. On the whole, the participants in the study were satisfied with the measures of safety at work, but there were some exceptions to this rule, especially among those hired for temporary jobs through external contractors. The experience of job-related radiation risks was related to the level of knowledge about radiation and its risks: those who knew less experienced larger risks. General level of anxiety did not correlate with risk perception. The latter was accounted for mainly by perceived radiation risks. Job satisfaction was more strongly related to perceived conventional job risks than to nuclear risks. Risk ratings were related to how subjects defined the concept of risk. Those who stressed consequences as part of their risk definition gave higher risk ratings.     

Rapid Benefit-Risk Assessments: No Escape from Expert Judgments in Risk Management

The "human health impacts assessment" described by Cox and Popken (this issue) is intended to be a benefit-risk tool that avoids pitfalls of using expert judgments for policy analysis or during strict application of the precautionary principle in risk management. The proposed benefit-risk calculation uses numerous assumptions and suppositions to calculate a ratio of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) lost for the number of human illness days prevented by the use of a food-animal antimicrobial drug, to the number of human illness days caused by the use of the antimicrobial drug. Assumptions about data--e.g., expert judgments on the representativeness of parameter estimates--are commonly used in risk assessment and risk management, including Cox and Popken's method. Cox and Popken apply the technique to specific examples of enrofloxacin and macrolides antimicrobial drugs, sometimes used in broiler chickens for human food. Although enthusiastically portrayed as a straightforward calculation of QALYs lost for two decision alternatives, Cox and Popken were silent on the pivotal expert judgment subsumed in their method: quality weights for illnesses caused by antimicrobial-resistant and antimicrobial-sensitive microbes are tacitly assumed to be equal. Yet, the costs in terms of prolonged illness, additional medications, repeat medical visits, and dread of more serious sequelae are expected to differ substantially for antimicrobial-resistant versus antimicrobial-sensitive illnesses. Despite their enthusiasm to the contrary, the "human health impacts assessment" by Cox and Popken is not immune from expert judgments in risk management.     

Which Paradigm for Managing the Risk of Ionizing Radiation?

This article tackles the problem of controversies expressed by experts in the field of estimating and managing ionizing radiation risks. We analyze the paradigms that were conceived on this subject, in particular the studies carried out by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), as well as the papers stating either that the effect of low doses is relatively weak or, on the contrary, relatively serious. Uncertainties, which taint the risk estimations, assume a particular importance because they are at the origin of the request for expert and value judgments and represent the critical point of the discussions on the ionizing radiation risks. Our study allows us to look further into the problem of the paradigm's formation, uncertainties, and expert and value judgments, and provides areas for consideration that may contribute to a better understanding of certain gridlocks in the decision-making process, as regards to environmental, health, and energy policies.     

Terrorism Risk Assessment,Recollection Bias,and Public Support for Counterterrorism Policy and Spending

Recollection bias (RB) refers to the phenomenon whereby after an adverse event people report that their risk assessment about a similar future event is presently no higher than their recollection of their pre‐event risk assessment. While previous research has outlined this theoretical construct and generated important empirical findings, there were some limitations. We design and employ a new national representative survey to address these limitations in this study. We examine the existence and persistence of RB among the general public in the context of a number of domestic and international terrorist attacks. We further examine the socioeconomic and political base of RB and the influences of RB on a wide range of citizens’ counterterrorism policy preferences. Our data analyses reveal strong evidence showing the occurrence of RB and its persistence across various forms of terrorism risk. With regard to the socioeconomic and political base, we find that females, older people, political conservatives, and Republicans are less likely to be subject to RB. For the effects of RB on public counterterrorism policy preferences, our analyses demonstrate that this bias significantly dampens public support for a wide range of preventive policy measures and government anti‐terrorism spending. Overall, our study, based on a national representative sample and an extended survey design, provides robust evidence of RB in terrorism risk assessment, and adds further evidence to support the idea that RB is likely a generalizable phenomenon. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed in the conclusion.     

Health Risk Assessment for Planned Waste Incinerators: Getting the Right Science and the Science Right

Health risk assessment is widely advocated in the United Kingdom as the most comprehensive means of assessing the health risks posed by the emissions of a planned waste incinerator. Its main advantage over other methods of assessment, such as air quality impact assessment, is its ability to address explicitly the direct (inhalation) and indirect (ingestion and dermal contact) health risks posed by different chemicals, including those that are not thought to have a threshold below which no adverse effect will take place. This article examines the level and quality of the emissions assessments included in 61 waste incinerator environmental statements (ESs); in particular, it focuses on the quality of the exposure assessment and risk characterization stages of the health risk assessment process. The article concludes that the ES has not always provided interested stakeholders with the best available information upon which to determine the tolerability of the health risks posed by waste incinerator emissions Some recommendations are made as to how this problem might be addressed in future environmental impact assessment (EIA) processes.     

Ecological Risk Assessment,Prediction, and Assessing Risk Predictions

Ecological risk assessment embodied in an adaptive management framework is becoming the global standard approach for formally assessing and managing the ecological risks of technology and development. Ensuring the continual improvement of ecological risk assessment approaches is partly achieved through the dissemination of not only the types of risk assessment approaches used, but also their efficacy. While there is an increasing body of literature describing the results of general comparisons between alternate risk assessment methods and models, there is a paucity of literature that post hoc assesses the performance of specific predictions based on an assessment of risk and the effectiveness of the particular model used to predict the risk. This is especially the case where risk assessments have been used to grant consent or approval for the construction of major infrastructure projects. While postconstruction environmental monitoring is increasingly commonplace, it is not common for a postconstruction assessment of the accuracy and performance of the ecological risk assessment and underpinning model to be undertaken. Without this “assessment of the assessment,” it is difficult for other practitioners to gain insight into the performance of the approach and models used and therefore, as argued here, this limits the rate of improvement of risk assessment approaches.