Final Program - Society for Risk Analysis

Part 2, we consider the use of expert elicitation, which is a rigorous, structuredprocess for characterizing what is known about a quantity by eliciting experts’subjective probability distributions for the quantity. This symposium considersmethodological innovations for addressing several related challenges, includinghow to most appropriately combine results across experts, how to use ordinaldata, how to encode varying terminology used to describe probabilities,and how to address probabilistic inversion.TUESDAYT2-B Symposium: Seafood Safety Following the Deepwater HorizonOil SpillSince the Deepwater Horizon accident and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexicoof April of 2010, a number of ambitious post-spill scientific studies havebeen undertaken, including large-scale studies of seafood wholesomenessand safety for human consumption. The most-widely recognized of thosestudies have been conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration(FDA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),and government agencies from the states that border the Gulf of Mexico.To assure scientific integrity of the overall assessment of seafood safety andto meet public demand, those sampling and testing programs will continuefor the foreseeable future. In addition, substantial research has been undertakenby academic and other independent investigators, private parties, andpublic/environmental groups. This symposium will include presentations bysenior researchers from the University of Alabama (Birmingham),an internationalenvironmental advocacy group, U.S. FDA, NOAA, and state governmentsfrom the Gulf of Mexico region. Time permitting, the symposiumwill be concluded with an open panel discussion. T2-D Symposium: ClimateChange Impacts and Adaptation Strategies: Evolving Roles of Risk AnalysisT2-D Symposium: Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Strategies:Evolving Roles of Risk AnalysisClimate adaptation is emerging as a critical mechanism by current policycan help human and natural systems can better adjust to a changing climate.Adaptation efforts in the United States are being conducted at multiple Governmentallevels and by both public and private organizations. Because ofthe inherent uncertainty in both long-range societal projections and regional-scaleclimate projections, risk analysis will play an important and growingrole in developing climate adaptation strategies at all levels. This symposiumwill bring together leading scientists from the US Geological Survey withexpertise on climate change impacts, who will describe cutting edge researchon regional climate impacts with special reference to effects on the coastalmargin. US Government officials will describe current Federal adaptationpolicies, and a risk assessment professional will consider how risk analysiscan contribute to better decision making in the light of this information. Dr.Virginia Burkett, Chief Scientist for Global Change Research at the USGS,will describe regional climate change impacts using the latest available regionalmodeling data. Dr. Nathaniel Plant, Oceanographer with USGS, willdiscuss the use of Bayesian methods to derive estimate of coastal erosionas a function of sea level rise, local geology, and wave action that generatesimproved estimates of coastal erosion and hence climate impacts. ArthurRypinski, US DOT economist, and Ralph Cantral, geographer and SeniorCoordinator for the National Climate Assessment, will discuss the currentclimate adaptation and assessment efforts, in the light of the informationpresented by the scientists. Dr. Margaret MacDonell, Cumulative Risk ProgramManager at Argonne National Laboratory, will survey current risk assessmentpractices in US adaptation efforts, and discuss potential improvementsin the current state of practice.T2-I Symposium: Regulation and RiskThe four papers in this session illustrate a variety of issues involved in theregulation of risk and the treatment of risk in regulatory analysis. Presenterswill discuss the role of science in regulatory decisionmaking, the efficacy ofregulation when the nature of the regulated risks change, incorporation ofuncertainty analysis into environmental benefit estimation, and recent trendsin the assessment of uncertainty in regualtory impact analysis.T3-C Symposium: Improving Problem Formulation and Dose-ResponseBeyond Science and Decision, Part 1Under the Alliance for Risk Assessment (ARA), a series of public workshopsled by an Expert Panel of toxicologists and risk assessors were heldin 2010 and 2011 to continue the discussion on elements of risk assessmentset forth by the 2009 NRC report “Science and Decisions: Advancement ofRisk Assessment.” This ARA activity was supported by 45 entities, includinggovernment agencies, industry groups, scientific societies, non-profit organizations/consortia,and consulting groups. The first ARA workshop explored avariety of perspectives on issues raised by the NAS 2009 report and discussedpossible case studies to address these. Representative case studies were thendeveloped and evaluated during the second ARA workshop. In the third ARA45