A STEPPED HEALTH RISK ASSESSMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION FOLLOWING MILITARY ACTIONS

Abstract

Military activities resulting in chemical pollution of the environment could produce a long-term impact on human health, whereas under certain conditions even ultra-low concentrations of some substances might provoke cancer, without noticeable toxic effect. According to modern views on carcinogenesis, the effect of carcinogens on human health does not have a threshold level of concentration. With the current deplorable state of the environment and an urgent need to improve it in view, we argue that there is a critical need for the mechanism that could assess the real state of the environment and would be instrumental for optimal decision-making process aimed at reducing environmental costs. The paper reports a case-study and exemplifies that a stepped health risk assessment is appropriate and helpful in case of environmental pollution following military actions. It also highlights the results of the risk assessment for life of the population living in the vicinity of hostilities. The results of the possible risk calculations concerning the damage non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic compounds could cause to the people living in the vicinity of hostilities were obtained in stages; the simple Monte Carlo error propagation methods and the two-dimensional Monte Carlo procedure were used to estimate the probability of different outcomes due to the intervention of random variables. It is shown that, in comparison with the simple Monte Carlo error propagation methods, the two-dimensional Monte Carlo procedure for estimating the probability of different outcomes provides additional information for the decision-making process, concerning either taking some specific measures or not. The findings of the study are the following: the assessment and subsequent analysis of environmental risk provide much more relevant information for taking an environmental decision, as compared to the threshold concentration methodology. The risk assessment should be carried out in stages, starting from simple (deterministic) to more complex ones (first the simple Monte Carlo error propagation methods, and later, two-dimensional Monte Carlo method), whenever there arise any of the following needs: if it is necessary to establish priorities among the areas, polluters, pollutants, pollutant transfer routes, categories of population and other risk factors; if resources for environmental conservation are limited; if mistaken decisions could generate destructive results; if there is a lack of information necessary to take a competent decision.