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Health and Environmental Risk Analysis: Fundamentals with Applications
- By Joseph F. Louvar, B. Diane Louvar
- Published Nov 10, 1997 by Pearson.
Book
- Sorry, this book is no longer in print.
About
Features
- Covers all fundamental concepts of risk analysis. Pg.___
- Unifies risk analysis concepts with Process Safety Management (OSHA) and Risk Management (EPA) regulations, and the International Organization of Standards' (ISO 14000) environmental management standard. Pg.___
- Progresses systematically from elementary concepts to advanced technology and techniques of risk analysis. Pg.___
- Covers various methods for calculating and reducing risks. Pg.___
- Presents many examples and illustrations. Pg.___
- Provides a companion to Chemical Process Safety: Fundamentals with Applications by Crowl & Louvar. Pg.___
- Includes references for additional information on risk analysis. Pg.___
Description
- Copyright 1998
- Dimensions: 7" x 9-1/4"
- Pages: 704
- Edition: 1st
- Book
- ISBN-10: 0-13-127739-1
- ISBN-13: 978-0-13-127739-7
12773-8
The complete, up-to-date guide to quantifying and mitigating environmental risks. This book constitutes Volume 2 of the Prentice Hall PTR Environmental Management Engineering Series.
In an era of limited resources and heightened environmental awareness, professionals responsible for handling chemicals and chemical wastes need a deep understanding of quantitative risk analysis. This is the first book to assemble in-depth coverage of the diverse topics relevant to measuring and mitigating environmental risks.
A companion to the well-received Chemical Process Safety: Fundamentals with Applications, this book's readable explanations and illuminating case studies will help you:
- Identify potential hazards caused by process technology, human behavior, or lack of management systems
- Utilize EPA-compliant source models to describe and quantify release scenarios
- Create fault trees that use basic probability theory to analyze the likelihood of a release
- Quantify the potential consequences of a chemical release
- Understand the concepts and applicability of structural activity relationships (SARs) for identifying the hazards of chemicals
Using detailed quantitative illustrations, the book presents current techniques for assessing exposures, predicting carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic effects, and analyzing the risks of ionizing radiation. It introduces today's broader “ecology assessments” that review the impact of a manufacturing process on the entire surrounding ecosystem. Finally, it shows how to manage risk analysis, integrate it with U.S. EPA regulatory compliance, and use it to help achieve global ISO 14000 environmental certification.
If you can measure a process, you can understand it, control it, and make it environmentally friendlier. Whether you are a professional safety, health, environmental or R&D professional—in industry, government, or the community—this book delivers all the tools you'll need.
Sample Content
Table of Contents
1. Introduction.
2. Process Descriptions.
3. Hazard Identification.
4. Source Models.
5. Fault Tree Analysis.
6. Consequence Analysis.
7. Exposure Assessment.
8. Dose Response and Risk Characterization.
9. Radiation Risk Assessment.
10. Environmental Assessment.
11. Structural Activity Relationships.
12. Risk Management.
13. Managing Risk.
14. Regulations.
15. ISO 14000
Appendices.
Index.
Preface
Preface
This textbook is primarily designed for teaching and applying the fundamentals of health and environmental risk analysis. It can be used as an industrial reference book, a text for a senior-level undergraduate course, or a text for a graduate course on risk analysis. Anyone interested in understanding, mitigating, or eliminating the risks associated with handling chemicals will find this book helpful. Users may include students as well as personnel from government agencies, city governments, communities, chemical plants, and storage or transportation facilities. This book is a companion text to D. A. Crowl and J. F. Louvar, Chemical Process Safety: Fundamentals with Applications (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), an introductory text on chemical process safety. It will serve as a significant extension of Crowl and Louvar's concepts and practices, with emphasis on risk analysis.
Risk analyzers currently use many resources scattered throughout several books, periodicals, and government documents. Often a reference work covers only a simple individual topic in great detail, making risk analysis difficult to comprehend as a single subject. The purpose of this text is to condense the most important technical principles concerning risk analysis by compiling subsets of the information deemed essential for industrial and university use. It is hoped that emphasis on the essentials will help students and practicing scientists and engineers understand the concepts and apply them appropriately.
Risk analysis is especially important today because governments, companies, and communities are becoming more aware of their environmental and safety responsibilities. At the same time, rising costs of regulatory compliance and dwindling natural resources require us to (a) differentiate degrees of risk, (b) identify the most effective risk reduction alternatives, and (c) manage the communication process to facilitate appropriate and timely action. Without realistic relative risk analyses, governments, communities, and practitioners will inappropriately treat all risks equally.
Regulations
Environmental and safety regulations affect processing plants, universities, laboratories, government facilities, city water purification plants, auto repair shops, and even the local dry cleaners. The process of compliance with environmental regulations can be time consuming and costly and may cause many businesses to move their operations to countries with fewer regulatory constraints. While moving business out of the country supposedly reduces local risk, it will also reduce employment-and unemployment beats out steeplejacking for the riskiest occupation. One major intent of this book is to help regulators and regulatees effectively comply with these regulations.
With the world's population increasing by one billion every ten years, the effectiveness of the chemical industry, for example, is especially important because it has a major influence on the availability of critical products. The chemical industry has a responsibility to work with national governments and local communities to effectively expand its production of
- agricultural chemicals to increase the production of food,
- pharmaceutical products to cure illnesses,
- surfactants to improve personal hygiene and reduce the possibility of spreading disease, and
- polymers to provide materials for clothing and shelter.
Reduced Risks to Humans and the Environment
On the other hand, it is clear that we must continue to identify and control chemicals in the environment that may cause premature deaths due to cancer. Industry must also identify and control toxic chemical contamination that may cause serious and permanent damage to our natural resources: forests, streams, rivers, lakes, and wetlands. Historic comparisons demonstrate the value of some of our major environmental regulations. In the 1950s, many of our major streams, rivers, and lakes were disgracefully polluted but have been brought back to life through industry compliance with regulations of the 1960s through 1990s. We can now say with confidence and pride that we are passing these valued environmental resources on to our descendants.
ISO 14000
The final chapter of this book emphasizes the international interest and obligation to protect people and the environment through effective implementation of the ISO 14000 international standards. A shared urgency underlies national government regulations and the ISO standards: Develop and implement management systems to improve our current performance and to build in processes for continuous improvement by
- documenting what needs to be done for high quality results and continuous improvement,
- doing what you say needs to be done, and
- documenting its accomplishment.
Future Direction
Since our resources are limited, we must understand and effectively apply the technology of relative risk analysis. We need to make thorough analyses prior to developing new regulations and prior to initiating new environmental and safety projects. Effective compliance with the regulations will then help regulators and regulatees do a better job of concentrating on real, rather than insignificant, risks. We all need to spend more time and effort on things that matter most, and less time on things that matter least.
We hope this textbook will help inspire students and practitioners to use the principles of risk analysis so that we may effectively reduce injuries to people and damage to the environment. It is our responsibility to protect our co-workers, neighbors, and the environment so that future generations will have at least the same personal and environmental opportunities we have enjoyed.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank their co-workers at the BASF Corporation, Wayne State University, and Madonna University for providing the industrial and university insight necessary for writing this textbook. We also acknowledge the members of the Undergraduate Education Committee of the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) and the Safety and Loss Prevention Committee of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. We have had personal and professional relationships with many of these committee members; their knowledge and enthusiasm have been educational and inspirational during the development of this text.
We thank J. H. Piccirelli (Words/Numbers Processing), B. Kittel, and L. Sieloff, who admirably transformed the terrors of our handwritten manuscript into a typewritten form worthy of technical scrutiny.
We are also most grateful to those who generously gave up their time to read the text and render important criticisms. The following have provided valuable advice and guidance:
- Dr. E. Kerfoot (BASF Corporation),
- Dr. R. Kummler (Wayne State University),
- Dr. R. Cummings (Wayne State University),
- Dr. J. R. Swanson (Swanson Environmental Company), and
- Dr. G. Abraham (consultant in the areas of safety and the environment).
The authors, however, accept full responsibility for any shortcomings in their interpretations of what those who helped offered in the way of sound advice, explanations, style, and teachings.
Finally, we acknowledge our family members, especially our children, Joyce, Ed, George, and Claire, who have been patient, supportive and neglected during all phases of this undertaking.