Risk Assessment

Environmental assets and damages

"Risk" is a term with multiple meanings. One knows of environmental risks and term life assurance just as the investment risk of buying a share. "Risk" means literally the combination of damages and the probability of their occurrence. One knows that from traffic safety. The probability of being injured in a car accident is higher than that from plane crash, because car accidents happen more often. On the other hand, the possible damage caused by a plane crash is higher than that caused by a car accident. Both of the risk can be calculated with available statistical data.

Environmental risks refer to, above all, the actual environmental assets, that are affected by the risk of being destroyed or damaged:

• Soil
• Water
• Air
• Flora and Fauna
• Human
• Others (climate, agriculture etc.)

One can understand environmental risks as the damage of an environmental asset from an environmental danger. Similarly one can perceive radiation protection as the health risk that a person is exposed to from a certain dose of radiation.

IFEU's work on environmental assets...

...and on damages

Many IFEU projects, may they be related to the licensing process of facilities or specific research proposals, have a clear connection to an environmental asset. They can be about one single environmental asset, like the projects on climate protection or soil protection, or multiple assets in their dynamic relationship such as the assessment of all environmental assets in the framework of licensing processes (see EIA and SEA). They always aim to detect and assess the risk of the environmental assets.

IFEU has a long tradition in investigating and assessing danger of radiation. This refers to radiation from nuclear facilities in normal operation as well as disrupted incidents and accidents. We have also investigated the effects of non-ionizing UV-radiation and the radiation from radar equipments. Our colleague Bernd Franke is member of the Radiation Protection Committee and was member of the Radar Committee. Furthermore, the new EU chemical law (REACH) is a subject of research and consultancy projects of IFEU.

Main areas of our work

Currently you can find more detailled information on the following areas of our work:

Soil Protection

Water Protection

Cross-Media Evaluation

Chemicals Policy

Radiation Protection

List of Projects "Risk Assessment"

Contact

Bernd Franke
(06221/4767-23; bernd.franke@ifeu.de).