Environmental Risk and Impact Assessment
Environmental Risk and impact assessment
Most human activities may impose damage to the environment, large or small. The severity of potential damages and their likelihood are the cornerstones of Environmental Risk Assessment.
Environmental Management is Risk Based
Environmental Management is preferably based on scientific knowledge holding information of potential damages, their probability distributions and uncertainties. Lack of knowledge increases the uncertainty and thereby also the environmental risk, so adequate scientific knowledge is paramount for safe and even cost efficient environmental management. For these reasons Environmental Risk Assessment has become a key support tool for management decisions.
It is exercised by Industry and Authorities
It is fundamental in the European area to proactively avoid environmental damage and facilitate a sustainable development of industrial activities. This is integrated in authority regulations as well as in industrial practise.
Good examples of actions to fulfil this goal by the Norwegian oil and gas industry are the operators’ development of systems for Environmental Risk Assessment to be able to safeguard the activities in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, which has been done in close dialog with the environmental authorities. Further, the recently made management plan for the Barents Sea prescribes a risk based environmental management of this highly valuable maritime area.
Complex concept- and calculation models are in use and under development
Various human actions combined with a range of different physical, chemical and biological factors influence the Environmental Risk. This high complexity requires development of conceptual models with input from different competences, and complex calculation models. Many of the factors will be similar for different human activities (eg. for different activities with discharges to the sea), and much work can be saved by transferring gained knowledge and tools between different application areas.
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