Chapter 6:

Environmental
Risk Analysis

Jericho L. Tuzon Trisha Mae Allam Rachelle Ann Iray Chelsi P. Monera
BSBA-BM4 BSBA-BM4 BSBA-BM4 BSBA-BM3
“There are risks and cost to a program of action.
But they are far less the long range risks and
costs of comfortable inaction”
~John F Keneddy
What is Environmental Risk Analysis?

-Environmental risk analysis referred as

environmental risk assessment is
process of predicting whether there
may be a risk of adverse effects on the
environment caused by a chemical
substance.
Risk

-Risk is the potential of gaining or losing

something of value such as physical
health, social status, emotional well-being,
or financial wealth and it can be gained or
lost when taking risk resulting from a given
action or inaction, foreseen or unforeseen.

Two classification of risk:

1. Voluntary Risk
2. Involuntary Risk
Voluntary Risk
-Are those that are deliberately assumed at an individual level, that is
the result of conscious decisions are hazards associated with activities
that we decide to undertake.

Example:
Driving Motorcycle Sky Diving Driving Car
Involuntary Risk

-Are negative impacts associated with an occurrence that

happens to us without our prior consent or knowledge.
People are exposed to hazard that are involuntary, since
they do not arise from wilful decision.
Example:

Lightning Forest fire Floods

Environmental Risk
-Environmental risk is an involuntary risk of exposure to an
environmental hazard, it can also be defined as the actual or
potential threat of adverse effects on living organisms and the
environment by effluents, emissions, wastes, resource depletion,
arising out of an organization's activities.

Risk Assessment
- refers to the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the risk
posed to health or the ecology by an environmental hazard.
Assessment Process
Risk Assessment in the
Philippines

A multi-hazard urban risk

assessment, PDC helped identify and
map areas most vulnerable to flood
and earthquake Hazards in Marikina
city, Philippines.

Marikina City, Philippines is less

than 100 miles from Mount
Pinatubo, an active strativolcano
that erupted violently in 1991
PDCS’s (Pacific Disaster Center) Global
Hazards Atlas shows the track of the super
typhoon bopha, which made landfall in the
Philippines on December 4, 2012.

The Big One, which experts say may

happen in our lifetime, could strike
once the West Valley Fault moves.
The West Valley Fault, which
traverses various parts of Metro
Manila and surrounding provinces and
conducted the studies by Greater
Metro Manila Risk Assessment
Project Risk Analysis Project
(GMMA-RAP). It allowed agencies
to create maps that determine the
depth of hazards present in an area.
Dose Response Relationship
Ecological Risk Assessment
-it evaluates the probability of changes to natural
environment that are linked such stressors as
pollution exposure or climate change.
Example:
Crop Damage, Soil contamination

Three phases of ecological risk assessment

• Problem Formulation
• Analysis phase
• Risk Characterization
 Risk Management
- is concerned with evaluating and selecting
from alternative policy instruments to reduce
society’s risk of a given hazard.
Task of Risk Management
-Implementation of the risk management process involves a
series of decisions aimed at two major task:
1. To determine what level of risk is “acceptable”
2. To evaluate and select the “best” policy instrument to
achieve that risk level

· Acceptable risk – it eliminates the associated health and

ecological damages.

· De minimis risk – this concept is sometime equated to the

risk of natural hazard such as lightning strike or
earthquake.
· Selecting the best policy- the command-and-control
Risk Management Strategies
-executing the two task of risk management, determining the
acceptable risk level and choosing the appropriate policy
instrument.

Several risk management strategies have been develop overtime:

• Comparative risk analysis – helps the risk manager to select an

acceptable risk level

• Risk benefit analysis- is commonly mandated in environmental

law for examples are the Toxic Subtance Control Act (TSCA)
And Federal Insecticide, fungicide and rodenticide act (FIFRA).

• Benefit-cost analysis- a strategy that compare the Marginal

social benefits (MSB) of a risk reduction policy to the
associated Marginal social cost (MSC)
THANK YOU!