Decision-making tools are needed to support environmental management in an increasingly global economy. Addressing threats and identifying actions to mitigate those threats necessitates an understanding of the basic risk assessment paradigm and the tools of risk analysis to assess, interpret, and communicate risks. It also requires modification of the risk paradigm itself to incorporate a complex array of quantitative and qualitative information that shapes the unique political and ecological challenges of different countries and regions around the world. This book builds a foundation to characterize and assess a broad range of human and ecological stressors, and risk management approaches to address those stressors, using chemical risk assessment methods and multi-criteria decision analysis tools. Chapters discuss the current state-of-knowledge with regard to emerging stressors and risk management, focusing on the adequacy of available systematic, quantitative tools to guide vulnerability and threat assessments, evaluate the consequences of different events and responses, and support decision-making. This book opens a dialogue on aspects of risk assessment and decision analysis that apply to real-time (immediate) and deliberative (long-term) risk management processes.

State-of-the-science approach to emerging threats Use of advanced quantitative tools to address policy problems Balanced international perspectives, including developing countries Risk assessment and decision analysis applications Case studies in the use of risk assessment and decision analysis

Inhalt
Real-Time and Deliberative Decision Making: Needs and Applications.- Cognitive Aspects of Business Innovation.- A Synopsis of Immediate and Deliberate Environmental Assessments.- Federal Decision Making for Homeland Security.- Group Information-Seeking Behavior in Emergency Response.- The Use of War Game Simulations for Business Strategies.- An Integrated Approach for Flood Risk Management.- Rationale and Development of a Scale to Communicate Environmental and Other Community Risks.- Risk Assessment for Emerging Stressors.- Nanomaterial Risk Assessment and Risk Management.- Estimation of Effect Thresholds for the Development of Water Quality Criteria.- Comprehensive Risk Assessment.- DPSIR and Risk Assessment of Dumped Chemical Warfare Agents in the Baltic Sea.- Social and Ecological Challenges Within the Realm of Environmental Security.- Adaptive Management and the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan.- Multicriteria Decision Analysis: Methodology and Tools.- Uncertainty Modeling with Imprecise Statistical Reasoning and the Precautionary Principle in Decision Making.- SMAA-III.- Attracting Additional Information for Enhancing the Uncertainty Model.- Modeling Stakeholder Preferences with Probabilistic Inversion.- Operations Research and Decision Analysis.- Multicriteria Decision Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment.- Decision Evaluation for Complex Environmental Risk Networked Systems (DECERNS).- Sustainable Management of Water Resources and Minimization of Environmental Risks.- Avoiding MCDA Evaluation Pitfalls.- Applications of Multicriteria Decision Analysis for Environmental Stressors.- Approaches Used for Remedy Selection at Contaminated Sediment Sites.- Multicriteria Decision Analysis for Choosing the Remediation Method for a Landfill Based on Mixed Ordinal andCardinal Information.- Ordinal Measurements with Interval Constraints in the EIA Process for Siting a Waste Storage Area.- Balancing Socioeconomic and Environmental Risks and Benefits under Multiple Stressor Conditions.- Risk Assessment of Radionuclide Contamination in Potable Water.- Assessment of Groundwater Contamination Risk from Nonchemical Stressors in Wastewater.- Wastewater Reuse.