Industrial Environmental Management

5Assessment and Management of Health and Environmental Risks: Industrial and Manufacturing Process Safety

The concept of risk, the possibility of loss or injury, is familiar in every human endeavor. Both chemical engineers and environmental engineers routinely consider the risks of adverse health and environmental impacts from exposures to industrial by‐products released to air, water, and land. Risk assessment, thus, is an organized process for describing and estimating the likelihood of such events. Risk management is the decision‐making process by which planners, who are not necessarily chemical or environmental engineers, attempt to minimize risks without undue harm to societal values.

This chapter explains the paradigms used in evaluating the impacts of chemical releases on human health and on the environment. Tools and procedures are described for monitoring exposure to chemicals and for communicating to the public the results of analysis of risk data. The coverage of risk management decisions should be made independently of risk analysis. However, the important concepts in this field are explained and illustrated (Omenn and Faustman 2002; Slovic et al. 2004).

5.1 Health Risk Assessment

Risks to human health may be assessed on the basis of information collected from environmental monitoring; alternatively, the data may be incorporated into models of human activity and exposure, in the workplace and elsewhere, to permit analysts to draw conclusions on the likelihood ...