Integrated Assessment of Risk and Sustainability in the Context of Regulatory Decision Making

Abstract

Risk assessment is a decision-making tool used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other governmental organizations to organize and analyze scientific information so as to examine, characterize, and possibly quantify threats to human health and/or ecologic resources. Sustainability evaluation is a process for organizing and analyzing scientific and technical information about nature-society interactions in order to help decision-makers determine whether taking or avoiding certain actions will make society more sustainable. Although development and application of these two methodologies have progressed along distinct and unconnected pathways, the National Research Council recently recommended that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency adopt the concept of "sustainability" as both a process and a goal, and that risk assessment be incorporated, when appropriate, as a key input into decision-making about sustainability. The following discussion briefly reviews these two analytic approaches and examines conceptual frameworks for integrating assessments of risk and sustainability as a component of regulatory decision-making.

The Green Experiment: Cities, Green Stormwater Infrastructure, and Sustainability

“…Sustainability in the urban environment is both a process and a goal [25]. Time horizons for sustainability transitions require both short and long term action [4].…”

Cumulative Health Risk Assessment: Finding New Ideas and Escaping from the Old Ones

“…a move toward making risk assessments more relevant to decision-making and to the concerns of affected communities." There is a need for risk assessments that are more participatory (NRC 2009;Sexton 2013a), transparent (NRC 2009Cal/EPA 2010;Sexton 2013b), and holistic (USEPA 2003, 2013NEJAC 2004NEJAC , 2010Callahan and Sexton 2007;NRC 2009;Sexton 2012;Sexton and Linder 2014) so that the results are realistic, reliable, responsive, and reasonable.…”

Cumulative health risk assessment of co-occurring mycotoxins of deoxynivalenol and its acetyl derivatives in wheat and maize: Case study, Shanghai, China

“…In 2010, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) reconsidered the toxicity of the acetylated derivatives (3-ADON and 15-ADON) to be similar to that of DON and extended the previous Provisional Maximum Tolerable Daily Intake (PMTDI) of 1 μg/kg body weight/day (JECFA, 2001) to a group PTMDI for the three compounds (JECFA, 2010). Due to the high toxicity and co-occurrence of the targeted mycotoxins, assessments of cumulative health risks associated with dietary intake (DI) of multiple mycotoxins are required (Calow and Forbes, 2013;Sexton and Linder, 2014).…”