Scientific and engineering improvement of environmental risk management - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 384

Figure 11.3 Decision making in environmental risk management.
3 INNOVATION IS THE DRIVING FORCE FOR THE
IMPROVEMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL RISK MANAGEMENT
A number of innovative methods and technologies have been developed and are ready
for application for hazard assessment, the assessment and monitoring of the transport,
fate and effects of contaminants as well as risk reduction and environmental reme-
diation. There are developments in the field of evaluation and interpretation of the
measured and calculated data, and otherwise collected information. New assessment
methods ( in situ assessment, remote sensing, rapid toxicity testing, etc.), evaluation
and interpretation methods (statistical tools, environmental risk and impact assess-
ment methodologies, etc.) for the local, regional and global environmental risk,
socio-economic effects as well as the impacts during the whole life cycle encourage
good environmental decision making. These methodologies must be harmonized and
merged.
Some of the innovative testing methods, remediation technologies and decision-
support tools have proven their applicability and performance in interlaboratory tests
and full-scale demonstrations, but their market entry and practical implementation
proceed slowly.
Figure 11.4 shows a deep virtual gap (a kind of “Death Valley'') between the
scientific-technical opportunities and the methodologies actually used in the field of
ERM, based on EURODEMO Project findings (2005-2008). This “Death Valley''