Abstract
This paper discusses the need for global risk assessment and suggests a general philosophical design approach for such a monumental task. One key to success of such an endeavor lies in the integration of global risk assessment data needs into the overall framework of global change study recently initiated by several organizations, including the International Council of Scientific Unions.
We feel there is an acute need for global risk assessment. Anthropogenic activities are garnering larger and larger percentages of the total emissions of a variety of chemicals into the environmental media and greatly speeding up existing and creating new biogeochemical cycles. The effects of such activity on natural earth systems are largely unknown, particularly as spatiotemporal scales of potential impact challenge our analytical capability.
Additionally, current retrospective study of the sun, earth, and other terrestrial planet system factors such as solar flux, planet paleoclimate, orbital dynamics, and atmospheric composition suggest a much greater rate and intensity of change of our environment than previously thought. In itself, such natural change can present a potential threat to humans.
Ideally, global risk assessment will identify and analyze potential human and natural event scenarios, their probability of occurrence and potential level of damage to humans and earth systems. Such a risk assessment may be useful in suggesting policy changes in regards to chemical handling, agricultural practice and education.
This paper is exploratory in nature and perhaps will serve as a point of departure for more definitive design of a global risk assessment.
A revised and updated version of this paper titled “A Tentative Global Risk Assessment Framework,” can be found in Liptak, S. C., J. W. Atwater, and D. S. Mavinic, Environmental Engineering Proceedings of the 1988 Joint CSCE-ASCE National Conference,Vancouver, British Columbia, July 13–15, 1988, Montreal: Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, pp. 46–53, copyright Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, 1988.
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Tiller, M.H. (1989). Global Risk Assessment. In: Bonin, J.J., Stevenson, D.E. (eds) Risk Assessment in Setting National Priorities. Advances in Risk Analysis, vol 7. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-5682-0_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-5682-0_31
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