Environmental Risk - Case Studies
This book presents real cases of the air, water and soil pollution with harmful substances, both toxic and mutagenic, and gives examples of environmental hazards estimation as well as health risk assessment in different exposure scenarios. The described examples include all elements of risk estimation procedure starting from hazard identification, followed by exposure assessment, determination of dose-response relation, risk characterization and ending with uncertainty analysis. The cases aim to help the reader to understand more clearly different calculation methodologies and to carry out the risk assessment in different environments. The book is intended as a selection of the representative hazard cases aimed at students, professionals and other users interested in environmental engineering, environmental chemistry, environmental safety and all areas of environmental science where human health and well-being are involved. ; Environmental risk is actual or potential hazard for living organisms and other elements of the environment that may exhibit adverse effects caused by effluents, emissions and waste materials, arising from human activities. As-sessment of the health risk is a procedure within a scope of the environmental risk assessment. Estimation of the health risk comprises qualitative and quanti-tative evaluation of the human's exposure to environmental contamination. On this basis probability of manifestation of adverse health effects in a popula-tion is determined. This work deals with the topics of assessment of risk for human health arising from environmental contamination. Procedures of the environmental health risk assessment had been devel-oped in the 1980s as a part of a Federal government effort to clean up land in the United States that was contaminated by hazardous waste and that was identified by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The program was created when Congress Enacted the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). Until that time the primary method of environmental hazard evaluation consisted in comparing the real contamination level with pollutants' permissible concentrations in the air, water and soil. The highest permissible concentrations of the pollutants in the environment have been set out by the governments of particular countries in order to protect humans from possible exposition to harmful substances found in the air, water and soil. Such an approach however, does not reflect the real health hazard level that the people are facing during their contact with the environment. In fact, the probability of health effects incidences caused by the pollutants depends not only on the arbitrarily adopted permissible concentrations but most of all on the exposure scenarios of the population considered. It is only the full analysis of actual health risk that shows real effects of the polluted environment on hu-mans. This book presents cases of the air, water and soil pollution with harmful substances, both toxic and mutagenic, and gives examples of hazard's estima-tion as well as health risk assessment in different exposure scenarios. Residen-tial and occupational scenarios are mostly taken into account. They include all elements of the procedure starting from hazard identification, followed by ex-posure assessment, determination of dose-response relation, risk characteriza-tion and ending with uncertainty analysis. Also some recommendations in a concise manner are given aiming at hazard as well as health risk abatement. The presented examples involve real, independent cases that were subjects to governmental grants and commercial projects. The cases aim to help the reader to understand more clearly different calculation methodologies and to carry out the risk assessment in different environments. The work focus are exclusively anthropogenic emissions released as a result of routine commercial businesses, municipal activities as well as technical disasters affecting human health and well-being. It should be stressed that there exist examples of the environmental pollution where, so far, no precise risk assessment is possible due to the lack of necessary data or reliable estimation procedures. Such a case could be contamination with petroleum products which usually constitute a mixture of hundreds chemical compounds of different chemical, physical and toxicological properties. This book is intended as a selection of the representative cases describing risk estimation procedures, aimed at students, professionals and other users interested in disciplines ranging from environmental engineering and environ-mental chemistry to environmental safety and all areas of environmental science where human health and well-being are involved. ; Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego
