Environmental Hazard and Risk Assessment
Many of the risk sources which present a hazard to people will also present a hazard to the environment. Of course, in some cases, the impact on the environment may subsequently also impact on people. In RPA’s work, consideration is always given to potential environmental hazards and risks.
Examples of where particular consideration has been given to risks to the environment and/or to people via the environment include:
- emissions of dioxins/furans from incinerators
- risks to bee populations
- gas/leachate escape from engineered landfills
- release of genetically modified organisms
- biodiversity impacts of flooding
- exposure to chemicals in the marine environment
As for risk assessments focused on human health, the assessment of environmental hazards/risks involves a structured analysis of both the likelihood of an undesired event and the magnitude of the consequences. One of the more interesting aspects of environmental risk assessment is the difficulty in determining an ‘acceptable’ level of risk whereas, when dealing with risks to people, there are reasonably well established numerical criteria for tolerable levels of risks (and associated monetary values).
Click here to find out about the Definitions of Hazard and Risk that we use, or contact our experts below for further information.
