Engineering Decisions for Life Quality: How Safe is Safe Enough? provides a foundation and a theoretical basis for managing risk to an acceptable level under the real-world constraint of limited resources. The focus is not on risks as such, but on what can be done to maximize the positive outcomes of risk in terms of improvements to the quality of life.

The principal focus of Engineering Decisions for Life Quality: How Safe is Safe Enough? is on the development of guidance for establishing rational standards of practice. Standards should meet the requirement of utilizing resources to achieve the maximum net overall benefit to society within society's capacity to commit such resources. The book introduces an innovative and unique approach, balancing life safety with economy, that challenges evolving techniques and methods for managing risk, and that aims to maximize life expectancy while retaining good health.

The ideas discussed within this book will be of interest to engineers; advanced undergraduate and graduate students; public health officials; and risk specialists. For decision-makers there is also an emphasis on basic principles and requirements to serve the broader public interest, making this book a powerful tool to help define a reasonable trade-off between safety and economy.

Springer Series in Reliability Engineering publishes high-quality books in important areas of current theoretical research and development in reliability, and in areas that bridge the gap between theory and application in areas of interest to practitioners in industry, laboratories, business, and government.

Autorentext

J.S. Nathwani is Professor and Ontario Research Chair in Public Policy for Sustainable Energy Management at the Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada. He is also Executive Director at the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy and Director of the Institute for Risk Research. Professor Nathwani holds a BSc, MSc and PhD in Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry from the University of Toronto.

M.D. Pandey is Professor and NSERC-UNENE Industrial Research Chair for the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He has a BEng degree in Civil Engineering from Bhopal University, India, as well as an MSc and PhD in the same subject from the University of Waterloo.

N.C. Lind is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He received his MSc in Civil and Structural Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark and his PhD in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics fron the University of Illinois.

Inhalt
The Societal Capacity to Commit Resources.- Social Indicators for Managing Risk.- Judging Risks Using the Life Quality Method.- Air Quality Standards.- Nuclear Safety.- Port Cities with High Exposure to Flood.- Optimal Design of a Flood Protection Levee.- Closure.