An Ecological Approach for Risk and Impact Ranking. M. Barlettani, DCMN, Università degli studi di Pisa, via Diotisalvi 2, 56100 Pisa, Italy; G. Fruttuoso, THEMAS srl, via Rustichello 9, 56100 Pisa, Italy; and P. Lombardi, Biologist, via Garigliano 57, 00198 Roma, Italy
There is an increasing interest in integrated risk and impact analysis including assessment of the possible consequences of industrial activities on workers, the public and natural or human ecosystems. In studies dealing with this subject, the comparison and ranking of global (human and environmental) risk and impact is usually carried out with a normalization of different consequences to a single index, by means of the elicitation of a weighting function, or an economic valuation.
In the present paper an original risk index is presented. The inclusion of human species in the local and planetary ecosystems and the energetic approach allow the elaboration of a risk index including effects on people and the environment. The index is a measurement of the gross primary production of the ecosystem that is lost during the year, due to industrial activities. The loss can be caused by direct effects on producer organisms, i.e. plants, or by fatalities in heterotrophic organisms, such as people. In the last case what is lost is the primary production that were necessary for the biological and cultural growth of the individual.
In the calculation of the index it is possible to take into account both the impact on local ecosystems or on local and global systems, including the effect of carbon dioxide pollution.
The methodology was applied to rank the risks and the impacts resulting from some industrial activities. An alternative prioritization is performed on the basis of economic aspects, giving to human life different values, in agreement with different methodologies presented in the literature. Results from the ecological and economic approach were similar. The advantage of the ecological approach is the possibility of correlation between the index and a judgement on the ecological sustainability of the industrial activity examined.
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