Perception of uncertainties and quality in risk assessments by people working with risk assessments

Abstract

Background About 80,000 possible contaminated sites have been identified in Sweden. Assessing the risk posed by these sites and, if necessary, remediating the soil is associated with high costs. It is thus important that these assessments are reliable. A problem with current methods is that uncertainty and variability are often not accounted for. Different individuals have different physiology and behaviour and soil composition differs at various sites which can be considered in probabilistic methods. This requires tools that are user-friendly and cost and time-efficient. Information about the perception of risk assessments, uncertainty and tools wanted by people working with risk assessments is therefore needed.Aims The aim of this study is to investigate whether people working with risk assessments in practice find that these assessments are of sufficient quality, whether it is important to consider uncertainty and variability and which tools they may need to be able to consider these questions.Methods A questionnaire was sent to people working with the risk assessment of contaminated sites at government authorities and consultancies in Sweden. Results The data collected suggest that the majority of respondents find that risk assessment quality in general would need to be improved. Important factors to achieve this include a greater knowledge of the individuals involved in risk assessments, more financial resources, greater knowledge in form of new research and more time. The respondents also find it very important to characterize both uncertainty and variability, and to do this several respondents want more tools such as literature and databases with information about critical exposure factors and manuals.ConclusionsAccording to personnel involved in the risk assessment of contaminated sites, the quality of the assessment should be enhanced and different tools would be useful to facilitate the characterization of uncertainty and variability.