Hydrodynamics and Circulation of Fjords
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HAZARDS Simon Dobby Health and Safety Emerging Planning Unit, Metropolitan Borough Council, Barnsley, UK
General concepts The concept of hazard identification and management is widely acknowledged in many fields, including environmental and health and safety management, as a tool for preventing or minimizing harm. A hazard may be defined as a situation with the potential to cause harm. Three main elements are contained within the hazard definition: situation, harm, and potential. Situation refers to what could occur (e.g., heavy metals may enter surface waters). Harm may be in terms of detriment, injury, or ill health to people; damage to the environment; or a combination of these, for example, contamination of lake sediments. However, it is not sufficient to identify only what could occur if hazards are to be managed. The possible likelihood and extent of the potential effects need to be determined in order that action can be taken. This introduces the concept of risk and the assessment and management of risk. The risk from a hazardous situation is a combination of the likelihood that it will cause harm and the magnitude of the harm that could be caused. The risk concept therefore moves from a pure identification of what harm could occur to a determination of what harm is likely to occur and what may cause the most harm (i.e., the likelihood and consequences of a hazardous event occurring (BSI, 2007)). Once determined, risks can then be assessed to decide whether they are acceptable. Risk assessment informs decisions on how to manage risks and is therefore the overall process of determining the likelihood and consequences of a hazardous situation occurring, estimating
the level of the risk, and deciding upon how to manage the risk based on the measures taken and which could be taken (BSI, 2007). The link between hazard and risk must be understood if hazardous situations and hence risks are to be managed. There is a plethora of techniques for risk assessment ranging from simple risk screening (e.g., where the risk is undeniably negligible) to complex methods of assigning data to risks. Two main methods of risk assessment exist: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative risk assessment is an objective approach to the assessment of risk. Quantitative risk assessment techniques are generally mathematics/engineering based, complex, and aim to quantify risk expressed in units such as incidents of a certain severity per annum (Guy, 2001). Conversely, qualitative risk assessment is a subjective approach to risk assessment that considers that the perception of risk is different to different people depending on their experiences (Guy, 2001). Qualitative risk assessment may encompass a simple semiquantification of risk such as assigning defined categorizations of low, medium, and high as both measures of the severity of consequences and the likelihood of occurrence. However, these labels are generally assigned based on the perception of the assessors rather than specific calculation. Despite their inherent differences, ge
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