Abstracts (PDF file, 1.8MB) - Society for Risk Analysis

SRA 2013 Annual Meeting Abstracts
P.127 Phillips, JK*; Anderson, JK; TRC Solutions; US Air Force;
JKPhillips@trcsolutions.com
Challenges Associated with Practical Environmental
Restoration Risk Assessment and Management Decisions
for Perfluoroalkyl Substances (PFASs)
Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are environmental emerging
contaminants with widespread applications in industry. PFASs
do not have federal cleanup standards; however, some PFASs
are environmentally persistent, bioaccumulate in living
organisms, and have demonstrated toxicity in laboratory
animals. Thus, despite the lack of federal regulations, it may be
prudent to assess and potentially mitigate human and/or
environmental exposures. A risk management decision process
for the management of emerging contaminants such as PFASs
at restoration sites is outlined. The identification of PFASs can
significantly impact site objectives, schedule, cost and ongoing
remedial activities, particularly without clear regulatory
criteria. PFASs present unique challenges including identifying
potential sources related to PFAS release, and characterizing
PFAS contaminated groundwater and/or soil. EPA’s Office of
Water is conducting reanalysis of PFAS toxicity information to
revise their 2009 subchronic Provisional Health Advisories
(PHAs). PHAs are non-enforceable guidelines that may or may
not be utilized within state-led regulatory environmental
cleanup decisions, leading to inconsistent national application.
Within the US, there are several States with PFAS guidance
levels, however only Minnesota has promulgated standards.
This poster presentation will introduce PFASs, their sources,
and the available screening levels for data comparison. It will
also highlight the management challenges and current
technical options available for groundwater contaminated with
PFAS. Until consistent and defensible toxicity values are
developed and practical remedial technologies are available, it
remains challenging to execute consistent risk management
practices to protect human health and the environment from
PFAS exposures.
T3-A.2 Pinto, A; Safe@Plant; abel.fnpinto@gmail.com
A Qualitative Safety Risk Assessment Method to
Construction Industry incorporating uncertainties by the
use of fuzzy sets
A new fuzzy Qualitative Occupational Safety Risk Assessment
model (QRAM), was developed to mitigate occupational injuries
in construction sites by improve the quality of occupational
safety risk assessment. The innovative aspects of QRAM model
is to embody the safety climate and the safety barriers
effectiveness as assessment dimensions and the use of fuzzy
sets theory to enhance the use of imprecise information. The
QRAM model grouped the safety risk factors in four
dimensions: Safety Climate, Severity, Possibility and Safety
Barriers, used to estimate the risk of the 8 accident modes that
encompass 97% of the work accidents that occur on
construction sites Safety Climate importance lies in support the
management of safety risks, i.e., safety climate factors are not
direct agents in the occurrence of work accidents but create
the conditions for accidents happening. Safety Climate
estimates is made by the set of predictors. Severity is assessed,
qualitatively, by fuzzy functions modeled from predictors
related to the amount of energy dissipated/absorbed and that
can be evaluated in situ like, heights, speeds, weights,
morphology of objects, etc..., and using the biomechanical
limits of the human body appointed in several studies. AP is the
possibility of work accident occurrence. Each accident mode
may be caused by a specific set of factors that determine the
greater or lesser possibility of occurring a work accident. For
each accident mode, safety barriers are divided in 4 types
(physical, functional, symbolic and incorporeal). Real tests
proved that QRAM is user friendly and its results are more
accurate that obtained by other methodologies.
M3-A.7 Pluess, DN*; Groso, A; Meyer, T; Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology Lausanne; david.pluess@epfl.ch
Analyzing and managing risks in research labs: How it is
done
Available risk analysis techniques are well adapted to industry
since they were developed for their purposes. For academic
research environment, most of these techniques are of limited
use because of several differences compared to the industrial
environment. Due to the nature of scientific research, accurate
statistical data for processes or equipment are hardly available.
However, most of the existing techniques depend on these data,
e.g. studies on reliability for risk quantification. Another
difficulty is to take into account special conditions present in
research laboratories when using available methodologies. A
majority of these techniques are designed for analyzing clearly
defined processes. In academic research settings, most of the
process’ variables are not well defined or continuously evolving.
Additionally, different hazards present in the same laboratory
may influence each other and can therefore be amplified.
Different solutions for the challenge of adapting an existing
method to research laboratories are available in the literature.
However, most of recommendations focus on a specific field of
scientific research, such as chemistry. In order to tackle this
problem, we developed a holistic risk analysis technique for
research and development environment. This newly developed
method features an enhancement of the risk estimation (using
probability, severity and detectability) with a new risk
dimension, called worsening factors. Additionally, a
semi-quantitative calculation method based on Bayesian
networks is used to improve the risk estimation. This new risk
analysis technique, specific for the research environment, is
intuitive, easily performable by non-experts (web interface),
less resource demanding than other techniques and more
accurate. Linked with an adapted safety policy it becomes a
comprehensive risk management tool. We will illustrate the
application of this new method through several real research
laboratories’ risk assessments.
M3-F.1 Pollard, SJT*; Mauelshagen, C; Prpich, G; Lickorish, F;
Delgado, JC; Jude, S; Cranfield University;
s.pollard@cranfield.ac.uk
Risk analysis for better policies – environmental risk
governance for the green economy
Straightened financial times are forcing a reappraisal of public
risk governance in the UK. A tension exists between a necessity
to share risk and cost with other actors, and a smaller public
administration managing more risk - for the risk it retains - as
Government becomes fleet of foot. Coincident with this,
environmental policy is expected to support economic growth;
this shift highlighting themes such as the effective appraisal of
distant environmental threats, the apportioning of shared
accountabilities for public risk, and the development of risk
management maturity in Government. Taken in concert, these
changes are improving environmental risk governance practice
and providing rich opportunities for risk analysts. We
summarise this new policy landscape, illustrating it with
practical examples to show trends in environmental risk
governance practice. Examples include the application of risk
characterisation tools for appraising strategic policy risk and
environmental futures, an examination of infrastructure risk
under climate change and the systems approach to animal
disease threats. What emerges is a reappraisal of some
research themes familiar to the risk analysis community, but
set in a new landscape of devolved accountability and
networked risk. These are discussed by reference to the new
opportunities they provide for policy and risk analysts alike.
December 8-11, 2013 - Baltimore, MD