The Structure of Environmental Risk Assessments

Since risk assessments can involve a large number of steps, including calculations requiring expertise in a wide range of scientific disciplines as well as mathematics and statistics, there is a need to subdivide the process. By doing this, the analyses of data and the calculations are separated into parts that can be handled by individuals with the appropriate expertise, ensuring that these same individuals don’t wander off into parts of the assessment for which they have inadequate training. If separated in the proper way, it even is possible to produce an assessment in which any of the separate parts can be revised without necessarily revising all of the other parts.