ENVIRONMENTAL RISK ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT: PROMOTING SECURITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE MEDITERRANEAN REGION

摘要

Risk Assessment and Risk Management are two parts of a process known as Risk Analysis (RA). This is a complex scientific domain involving different disciplines (e.g. physics, chemistry, toxicology, engineering, law, economics, sociology and political sciences) and inter-disciplines (e.g. ecology and environmental sciences) and addresses difficult technical, environmental, economic and social problems, where hazards may threaten populations or ecological systems. Environmental Risk Analysis (ERA) deals mainly with the evaluation of uncertainties in order to ensure reliability in a broad range of environmental issues, including utilization of natural resources (both in terms of quantity and quality), ecological preservation and public health considerations. In the USA and more recently in Europe, Japan and other developed countries, ERA has rapidly become not only a scientific framework for analysing problems of environmental protection and remediation but also a tool for setting standards and formulating guidelines in modern environmental policies.