Risks and Decisions for Conservation and Environmental Management

Author: Mark Burgman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521543019
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 516

Book Description
This book outlines how to conduct a complete environmental risk assessment. The first part documents the psychology and philosophy of risk perception and assessment, introducing a taxonomy of uncertainty and the importance of context. It provides a critical examination of the use and abuse of expert judgement and goes on to outline approaches to hazard identification and subjective ranking that account for uncertainty and context. The second part of the book describes technical tools that can assist risk assessments to be transparent and internally consistent. These include interval arithmetic, ecotoxicological methods, logic trees and Monte Carlo simulation. These methods have an established place in risk assessments in many disciplines and their strengths and weaknesses are explored. The last part of the book outlines some new approaches, including p-bounds and information-gap theory, and describes how quantitative and subjective assessments can be used to make transparent decisions.

Risks and Decisions for Conservation and Environmental Management

Author: Mark A. Burgman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Environmental management
Languages : en
Pages : 488

Book Description

Structured Decision Making

Author: Robin Gregory
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444333410
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 315

Book Description
This book outlines the creative process of making environmental management decisions using the approach called Structured Decision Making. It is a short introductory guide to this popular form of decision making and is aimed at environmental managers and scientists. This is a distinctly pragmatic label given to ways for helping individuals and groups think through tough multidimensional choices characterized by uncertain science, diverse stakeholders, and difficult tradeoffs. This is the everyday reality of environmental management, yet many important decisions currently are made on an ad hoc basis that lacks a solid value-based foundation, ignores key information, and results in selection of an inferior alternative. Making progress – in a way that is rigorous, inclusive, defensible and transparent – requires combining analytical methods drawn from the decision sciences and applied ecology with deliberative insights from cognitive psychology, facilitation and negotiation. The authors review key methods and discuss case-study examples based in their experiences in communities, boardrooms, and stakeholder meetings. The goal of this book is to lay out a compelling guide that will change how you think about making environmental decisions. Visit www.wiley.com/go/gregory/ to access the figures and tables from the book.

Population-Level Ecological Risk Assessment

Author: Lawrence W. Barnthouse
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1420053337
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 377

Book Description
Most ecological risk assessments consider the risk to individual organisms or organism-level attributes. From a management perspective, however, risks to population-level attributes and processes are often more relevant. Despite many published calls for population risk assessment and the abundance of available scientific research and technical tool

Managing Indoor Climate Risks in Museums

Author: Bart Ankersmit
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 331934241X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Book Description
This book elaborates on different aspects of the decision making process concerning the management of climate risk in museums and historic houses. The goal of this publication is to assist collection managers and caretakers by providing information that will allow responsible decisions about the museum indoor climate to be made. The focus is not only on the outcome, but also on the equally important process that leads to that outcome. The different steps contribute significantly to the understanding of the needs of movable and immovable heritage. The decision making process to determine the requirements for the museum indoor climate includes nine steps: Step 1. The process to make a balanced decision starts by clarifying the decision context and evaluating what is important to the decision maker by developing clear objectives. In Step 2 the value of all heritage assets that are affected by the decision are evaluated and the significance of the building and the movable collection is made explicit. Step 3. The climate risks to the moveable collection are assessed. Step 4: Those parts of the building that are considered valuable and susceptible to certain climate conditions are identified. Step 5. The human comfort needs for visitors and staff are expressed. Step 6: To understand the indoor climate, the building physics are explored. Step 7. The climate specifications derived from step 3 to 5 are weighed and for each climate zone the optimal climate conditions are specified. Step 8: Within the value framework established in Step 1, the options to optimize the indoor climate are considered and selected. Step 9: All options to reduce the climate collection risks are evaluated by the objectives established in Step 1.

Invasive Species

Author: Andrew P. Robinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 052176596X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 427

Book Description
This book reviews the latest risk-based techniques to protect national interests from invasive pests and pathogens before, at and within national borders.

Structured Decision Making

Author: Robin Gregory
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444333429
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 315

Risk Assessment for Object Conservation

Author: Jonathan Ashley-Smith
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135144737
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
'Risk Assessment for Object Conservation' reflects Dr Jonathan Ashley-Smith's personal interests and views in areas including materials science, the ethics of restoration, the costs of conservation and the philosophy of museums. This valuable book explains the mechanisms of deterioration of museum artifacts, quantifying the probability that damage will occur and estimating the rate of progress when it does. The principles outlined and the information provided will form a foundation for cost-benefit analysis of conservation proposals. Dr Ashley-Smith also gives comprehensive explanations of scientific of mathematical material to take into consideration the readers who have no background in these areas, alongside a basic introduction. The structure of the book provides a logical progression through tools, concepts information and examples. This is a must-have purchase for all conservators, curators and administrators of historic artifacts at both student and professional level.

Integrated Environmental Management

Author: John Cairns, Jr.
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 9780873712798
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
Integrated Environmental Management shows how to use integrated environmental management so that demands upon an ecosystem do not exceed its capacity to meet them, and the biological/ecological integrity is preserved. Varieties of disciplines, professions, institutions and federal and state agencies are shown how to integrate their individual objectives in utilizing a natural resource so the beneficial uses of others are not impaired. Valuable for the following groups:

Assessing Nanoparticle Risks to Human Health

Author: Gurumurthy Ramachandran
Publisher: William Andrew
ISBN: 143777864X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 299

Book Description
The book will take a systematic look at nanoparticle risks within the paradigm of risk assessment, consider the limitations of this paradigm in dealing with the extreme uncertainties regarding many aspects of nanoparticle exposure and toxicity, and suggest new methods for assessing and managing risks in this context. It will consider the occupational environment where the potential for human exposure is the greatest as well as the issues relevant to occupational exposure assessment (e.g., the exposure metric) and the evidence from toxicological and epidemiological studies. A chapter will be devoted to how conventional risk assessment can be carried out for a candidate nanoparticle (e.g., carbon nanotubes), and the limitations that arise from this approach. We will propose several alternate methods in another chapter including screening assessments and adapting the rich methodological literature on the use of experts for risk assessment. Another chapter will deal with non-occupational populations, their susceptibilities, and life-cycle risk assessments. There will be a chapter on current risk management and regulatory oversight frameworks and their adequacy. This chapter will also include a discussion of U.S. and E.U. approaches to risk assessment, as well as corporate approaches.