Methods of Risk Analysis: Traditional and Ecological Approaches

Historically, the term risk assessment has been applied to the examination of potential risk to human health as a result of exposure to some introduced environmental toxicant. As an intellectual discipline, risk assessment is in its infancy. Within the past couple of decades, considerable research has been done in the fields of toxicology, industrial hygiene, environmental impact assessment, engineering, and epidemiology. The vast majority of the accessible literature deals with such risk events as radiation exposure as a result of an industrial accident, impact of hazardous material on human health, impact of pesticides on human health, and oil spills. In recent years, a branch of risk analysis has formed that deals primarily with risks posed to the environment as a result of human activity; this type of analysis is generally referred to as “ecological risk analysis.” This paper summarizes the approaches associated with the traditional methods of risk analysis and with ecological risk analysis.