The Development of Risk Assessment Capabilities Within the Environment Agency. Raquel Duarte-Davidson, Risk Analyst (Chemical), Susan Duerden, Ian Meadowcroft, Roger Yearsley, and Simon Pollard, National Centre for Risk Analysis and Options Appraisal Environment Agency, Steel House, 11 Tothill Street, London SW1H 9NF, telephone +44 171 664 1619, fax +44 171 664 1638, e-mail raquel.duarte@environment-agency.gov.uk
The Environment Agency has responsibilities in England and Wales for regulating and managing a wide breadth of environmental risks. In some areas of regulation, structured and explicit risk related frameworks have been established; in other areas, the approach is more intuitive and reliant on expert judgement.
The Agency's National Centre for Risk Analysis and Options Appraisal was established in 1997 as a forward thinking centre to progress activities in this field and to lead in the development of risk-based tools and techniques for application within the Agency. The greatest challenge is to develop an applied framework that covers technical, social, economical and organisational aspects of risk as well as both strategic and operational issues. Progress towards this goal is examined.
An overall framework provides for a better appreciation of the entire range of risk-related activities being undertaken in the Agency. It will also guide further formalisation and quantification of currently intuitive approaches. This approach has several operational and managerial benefits for environmental regulators, including providing for defensible and consistent decision-making across the Agency that takes into account all relevant factors that contribute towards environmental risk, and providing a mechanism for targeting resources more effectively. An overview of the Agency’s risk assessment approaches, common framework and examples on how different functions address risk assessment will be presented, to include case studies for different risk-related activities.
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