Environmental risk is probabilisticdescription of the threat arising both for the environment and for the person himself, in the case of various anthropogenic influences or other events and phenomena. Any ecotoxicant is an undoubted stressor. An environmental risk assessment assumes that a stressor is any effect: chemical, mechanical or field, which causes any change in ecological and biological systems, both negative and positive.
The concept of environmental risk assessment includestwo elements: Risk Assesment, or risk assessment, and Risk Management, or risk management. Risk assessment is a scientific analysis of the origin, identification and determination of the level of risk in this particular situation. The concept of “environmental risk” refers to hazards threatening a particular ecological system or process that takes place in it. Ecological indicators of damage are the destruction of biota, a harmful, perhaps even irreversible effect on ecological systems, environmental degradation, which is associated with an increase in its pollution, an increase in the occurrence of various specific diseases, the death of large natural objects, such as lakes, seas, rivers, forests and so on.
Environmental risk may be manageable.For this purpose, it is necessary at first to analyze the risk situation itself, to develop and substantiate a management decision in the form of a law or regulation that will be aimed at reducing the risk or finding ways to reduce it.
The theory of environmental risk forms the principleswhich characterize the attitude of the human community to the need to ensure trouble-free operation of technical objects as sources of increased environmental hazard:
1) Zero environmental risk: this principle reflects people's confidence in the impossibility of causing damage to this object.
2) A consistent approach to complete and absolute security or zero risk: involves the conduct of research in this direction on the application of technologies that reduce this risk.
3) Minimum environmental risk: such a level of danger, which is maximally possible to achieve, based on the principle of justification of any costs for the protection of human security.
4) Balanced risk.According to this principle, taking into account any natural hazards and anthropogenic influences, the study of the degree of risk of each of the events and the conditions under which a person can be endangered.
5) Acceptable risk.This principle is based on an analysis of the ratio of costs and risks, or benefits and risks, or costs and benefits. Such a concept proceeds from the fact that it is completely or economically unprofitable to eliminate the risk, or it is practically impracticable, which means that it is worthwhile to establish a rational level of security that optimizes costs for reducing the likelihood of risk and the amount of damage possible in the event of an emergency.
The first step in assessing probable risk isidentification of the real danger for both humans and the environment. At this stage, research plays a big role. Hazard identification means searching for its signal and its selection from the general background.
At the second stage, the exposure is assessed, that is, the identification of which way, through which medium, in what quantity, when exactly and how long the impact will be.
The third is the assessment of the dependence of the effect on the dose -determining the quantitative pattern that associates the received dose of a harmful substance with the likelihood of adverse health effects.
And the fourth is the result of all the previous ones, a characteristic of risk. It includes an assessment of all identified and possible adverse effects on human health.
