Risk Assessment Of Plants Research Articles

Real-time risk analysis of safety systems

Methods for plant-specific, real-time, risk assessment are presented using Bayesian analysis with copulas. These are used to develop: (i) a forecasting analyzer that predicts the frequencies of occurrence of abnormal events, (ii) a reliability analyzer that predicts the failure probabilities of safety systems involving equipment and human actions, and (iii) an accident closeness analyzer that predicts the fuzzy memberships to various critical zones, indicating the proximity of a current plant state to a failure or disaster, through the use of accident precursor data. These methods, which involve repetitive risk analysis after abnormal events occur, are especially beneficial for operations involving complex nonlinearities and multi-component interactions, helping to achieve inherently safer operations. Furthermore, these methods demonstrate the importance of using plant-specific estimates of failure probabilities rather than generic values in the risk assessment of chemical plants. In this analysis, the propagations of abnormal events through the safety systems are modeled in real-time using SIMULINK and ASPEN DYNAMICS. The analysis methods are illustrated for a continuous ethyl benzene process.

Hybrid Model for Small Cruise Ships' Safety Risk Management

Maritime tourism has seriously suffered from various accidents caused by different contributing factors. The consequences of these accidents were either large environmental degradations or human casualties. For this purpose, a specific process known as Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) has been developed and applied to the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) rule-making process, in order to help the evaluation of new regulations or to compare proposed changes with existing standards. The application of the FSA facilitates a transparent decision-making process and provides a proactive mean enabling the avoidance of serious accidents by highlighting potential hazards. In this article, we propose to study and improve the FSA process by taking into account these new parameters. This can be performed by reviewing existing modeling methods and/or applying more elaborated models. Master Logic Diagrams are currently used by NASA for the probabilistic risk assessment of the shuttle and Markov models are used for the probabilistic risk assessment of nuclear power plants. We intend to discuss and study the applicability of these methods with danger parameters and to produce a new hybrid model.

Abstracts of the OECD Workshop on the Biology of Atlantic Salmon (Salmo Salar)

The main purpose of this workshop was to take the first steps in considering whether the general approaches which have been used in the past by the Working Group, primarily to address the safety/ risk assessment of transgenic plants, could be applicable to similar work on the safety/ risk assessment of transgenic fish.The objective of the workshop was to identify and review the kinds of (and availability of) baseline information of (non-transgenic) from traditional fish farming or breeding, and to determine what information might be relevant to risk/ safety assessment; and what information might be needed for the development of a biology document. The overall approach used by the Workshop was similar to that done to first identify and circumscribe the issues about crop species that would inform a risk/safety assessment of the same species after it had been transformed.

Session II: Identifying and Defining Hazards and Potential Consequences I: Concepts for Problem Formulation and Non-Target Risk Assessment

The scientific organizers of the symposium put much emphasis on the identification and definition of hazard and the potential consequences thereof and three full sessions with a total of 13 presentations encompassing a wide range of related themes were planned for this topic. Unfortunately, one talk had to be cancelled because of illness of the speaker (BM Khadi, India). Some presentations covered conceptual approaches for environmental risk assessment (ERA) of GM plants (problem formulation in the risk assessment framework, familiarity approach, tiered and methodological frameworks, non-target risk assessment) and the use of models in assessing invasiveness and weediness of GM plants. Other presentations highlighted the lessons learned for future ERA from case studies and commercialized GM crops, and from monitoring of unintended releases to the environment. When the moderators of the three sessions came together after the presentations to align their summaries, there was an obvious need to restructure the 12 presentations in a way that allowed for a consistent summarizing discussion. The following new organization of the 12 talks was chosen: (1) Concepts for problem formulation and non-target risk assessment, (2) Modeling as a tool for predicting invasiveness of GM plants, (3) Case-studies of ERA of large-scale release, (4) Lessons learned for ERA from a commercialized GM plant, (5) Monitoring of unintended release of Bt maize in Mexico. The new thematic structure facilitates a more in-depth discussion of the presentations related to a specific topic, and the conclusions to be drawn are thus more consistent. Each moderator agreed to take responsibility for summarizing one or more themes and to prepare the respective report.

Basic framework for risk assessment for transgenic plants developed by the OECD: 20 years after the OECD “Blue Book”

The OECD publication “Recombinant DNA safety considerations” (OECD, 1986), better known as the “OECD Blue Book”, has the reputation of being the first publication that endeavored to present comprehensive considerations on the environmental safety of recombinant DNA technology. Indeed, the book coined some of the key concepts in the discussion, e.g. the “case-by-case” and “stepby-step” approaches. But it also is a “snapshot in time”, that illustrates the state-of-the-art of the biosafety discussion at that moment. As such, it has worked in an excellent way as a discussion starter that has sparked off a number of publications on the safety of the environmental use of transgenic plants and micro-organisms. The Blue Book was initiated within OECD in 1983 as a follow-up to the OECD report “Biotechnology: International Trends and Perspectives” (Bull et al., 1983). The drafting of the Blue Book was entrusted to an ad hoc Committee of experts from academia, industry, and from governmental bodies. The impetus for OECD to look into matters of biosafety was the consideration that “recombinant DNA techniques have opened up new and promising possibilities in a wide range of applications and can be expected to bring considerable benefits to mankind” and that “a common understanding of the safety issues raised by recombinant DNA techniques will provide the basis for taking initial steps toward international consensus, the protection of health and the environment, the promotion of international commerce and the reduction of national barriers to trade in the field of biotechnology” (OECD, 1986). So the Blue Book was to approach these biosafety issues in a positive spirit, based on an underlying belief that

ExLOPA for explosion risks assessment

The European Union regulations require safety and health protection of workers who are potentially at risk from explosive atmosphere areas. According to the requirements, the operators of installations where potentially explosive atmosphere can occur are obliged to produce an explosion protection document. The key objective of this document is the assessment of explosion risks. This paper is concerned with the so-called explosion layer of protection analysis (exLOPA), which allows for semi-quantitative explosion risk assessment for process plants where explosive atmospheres occur. The exLOPA is based on the original work of CCPS for LOPA but takes into account some typical factors appropriate for explosion, like the probability that an explosive atmosphere will occur, probability that sources of ignition will be present and become effective as well as the probability of failure on demand for appropriate explosion prevention and mitigation means.

Risk Assessment of Transgenic Virus-resistant White Clover: Non-target Plant Community Characterisation and Implications for Field Trial Design

One of the most difficult elements of the ecological risk assessment of transgenic plants is investigation of their potential impact on biodiversity in complex non-target communities. This problem is particularly acute for pasture plants, since many have a track record of invasiveness. In this paper we develop an understanding of some aspects of the ecology of Trifolium repens L. (white clover) in montane vegetation communities in southeastern Australia as part of a larger project investigating potential ecological risks associated with commercial release of newly-developed transgenic virus-resistant T. repens cultivars. We use a combination of floristic surveys and biomass sampling to determine the habitat affinity of T. repens, the structure and composition of associated communities, and the scale at which different abiotic and biotic factors correlate with T. repens abundance. We also compare the abundance of native and exotic species within specific morpho-functional groups and use this to determine the relative significance of T. repens as a community constituent, and to identify native species that would be most at risk by expanding populations of T. repens. We found that T. repens comprises a relatively small component of the total community cover and biomass, but is one of the most abundant herbaceous species in mesic Poa – dominated grasslands and Poa-Eucalyptus woodlands in the study area, and that T. repens abundance is correlated at the within-community scale primarily with soil moisture and fertility. At smaller scales T. repens is limited by the hierarchical dominance of native graminoids and we conclude that competition for inter-tussock space in mesic communities is the most likely mechanism by which expanding populations of T. repens would influence populations of associated native species. These results have significant implications for the manner in which future analysis and risk quantification stages of the risk assessment of virus-resistant T.␣repens and other transgenic pasture plants in complex plant communities are performed.

Quantified risk assessment for plants producing and storing explosives

This paper presents a methodology for risk assessment of plants producing and storing explosives. The major procedural steps for quantified risk assessment (QRA) in explosive plants are the following: hazard identification, accident sequence modeling, data acquisition, accident sequence quantification, consequence assessment and integration of results. This methodology is demonstrated and applied in an explosive plant consisting of four separate units, which produce detonating cord, nitroglycol, dynamites and ammonium nitrate fuel oil (ANFO). A GIS platform is used for depicting individual risk from explosions in this plant. Total individual risk is equal to 1.0 × 10−4/y in a distance of 340m from the center of the plant, and 1.0 × 10−6/y in a distance of 390m from the center of the plant.

Assessing the Effects of Bt Maize on the Predatory Mite Neoseiulus cucumeris

The investigation of Neoseiulus cucumeris in the context of the ecological risk assessment of insect resistant transgenic plants is of particular interest as this omnivorous predatory mite species is commercially available and considered important for biological control. In a multitrophic feeding experiment we assessed the impact of Bt maize on the performance of N. cucumeris when offered spider mites (Tetranychus urticae) reared on Bt (Bt11, Syngenta) or non-Bt maize (near isogenic line) and Bt or non-Bt maize pollen as a food source. Various parameters including mortality, development time, oviposition rate were measured. Spider mites were used as a prey for N. cucumeris, since these herbivores are known to contain similar levels of Cry1Ab toxin, when reared on Bt maize, as those found in the transgenic leaf material. In contrast, toxin levels in pollen of this transgenic cultivar are very low. No differences in any of the parameters were found when N. cucumeris was fed with spider mites reared on Bt and non-Bt maize. Pollen was shown to be a less suitable food source for this predator as compared to spider mites. Moreover, subtle effects on female N. cucumeris (9% longer development time and 17% reduced fecundity) were measured when fed with pollen originating from Bt maize as compared to non-Bt maize pollen. Our findings indicate that the predatory mite N. cucumeris is not sensitive to the Cry1Ab toxin as no effects could be detected when offered Bt-containing spider mites, and that the effects found when fed with Bt maize pollen can be assigned to differences in nutritional quality of Bt and non-Bt maize pollen. The significance of these findings is discussed with regard to the ecological relevance for risk assessment of transgenic plants.

International network on incorporation of ageing effects into PSA

Abstract This paper describes the background and status of a new International Network on “Incorporating Ageing Effects into Probabilistic Safety Assessment”. The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission organized in September 2004 the kickoff meeting of this Network at JRC's Institute for Energy in Petten, Netherlands, with the aims to open the APSA Network, to start discussion of ageing issues in relation to incorporating ageing effects into PSA tools and to come to consensus on objectives and work packages of the Network, taking into account the specific expectations of potential Network partners. The presentations and discussions at the meeting confirmed the main conclusion from the previously organized PSAM7 pre-conference workshop on “Incorporating PSA into Ageing Management”, Budapest, June 2004, namely that incorporating ageing effects into PSA seems to be more and more a hot topic particularly for risk assessment and ageing management of nuclear power plants operating at advanced age (more than 25–30 years) and for the purpose of plant life extension. However, it also appeared that, especially regarding the situation in Europe, at present there are several on-going feasibility or full studies in this area, but not yet a completed Ageing PSA leading to applications. The project's working method is a NETWORK of operators, industry, research, academia and consultants with an active interest in the area (physical networking via a series of workshops and virtual networking via the Internet). The resulting knowledge should help PSA developers and users to incorporate the effects of equipment ageing into current PSA tools and models, to identify and/or develop most effective corresponding methods, to focus on dominant ageing contributors and components and to promote the use of PSA for ageing management of Nuclear Power Plants.

Soil microbial community analysis in the environmental risk assessment of transgenic plants

Soil microbial community analysis is one of the most important elements in the environmental risk assessment of transgenic plants. Recent technical advances in this area now enable us to assess the impact of plant genotypes on soil microbial communities with rapid, simple and less biased molecular techniques than the previously used conventional microbiological methodologies. We review the use of these modern molecular techniques from the aspect of environmental assessments of transgenic plants.

GM organisms and the EU regulatory environment: allergenicity as a risk component

The European Food Safety Authority, following a request from the European Commission, has published a guidance document for the risk assessment of GM plants and derived food and feed to assist in the implementation of provisions of Regulation (EC) 1829/2003 of the European Parliament and Council on GM food and feed. This regulation has applied since 18 April 2004. In principle, hazard identification and characterisation of GM crops is conducted in four steps: characterisation of the parent crop and any hazards associated with it; characterisation of the transformation process and of the inserted recombinant DNA, including an assessment of the possible production of new fusion proteins or allergens; assessment of the introduced proteins (toxicity, allergenicity) and metabolites; identification of any other targetted and unexpected alterations in the GM crop, including changes in the plant metabolism resulting in compositional changes and assessment of their toxicological, allergenic or nutritional impact. In relation to allergenicity specifically, it is clear that this property of a given protein is not intrinsic and fully predictable but is a biological activity requiring an interaction with individuals with a predisposed genetic background. Allergenicity, therefore, depends on the genetic diversity and variability in atopic human subjects. Given this lack of complete predictability it is necessary to obtain, from several steps in the risk-assessment process, a cumulative body of evidence that minimises any uncertainty about the protein(s) in question.

A global view on ARAMIS, a risk assessment methodology for industries in the framework of the SEVESO II directive

The ARAMIS methodology was developed in an European project co-funded in the fifth Framework Programme of the European Commission with the objective to answer the specific requirements of the SEVESO II directive. It offers an alternative to purely deterministic and probabilistic approaches to risk assessment of process plants. It also answers the needs of the various stakeholders interested by the results of the risk assessment for land use or emergency planning, enforcement or, more generally, public decision-making. The methodology is divided into the following major steps: identification of major accident hazards (MIMAH), identification of the safety barriers and assessment of their performances, evaluation of safety management efficiency to barrier reliability, identification of reference accident scenarios (MIRAS), assessment and mapping of the risk severity of reference scenarios and of the vulnerability of the plant surroundings. The methodology was tested during five case studies, which provided useful information about the applicability of the method and, by identifying the most sensitive parts of it opened way to new research activity for an improved industrial safety.

Risk Assessment for Invasive Plant Species1

Abstract Various domestic and international initiatives have elevated invasive species issues onto the policy agenda. In the invasive plants arena, risk assessment efforts have focused on classifying the invasive potential of nonindigenous plants. Currently, however, the field of risk assessment for invasive species is in an early stage of development, and there is a lack of broad scientific principles or reliable procedures for identifying the invasive potential of plants in new geographic ranges. Furthermore, identifying potential hazards may be just the first step in a more comprehensive risk assessment. At least for those regulatory decisions that may be disputed internationally or domestically, scientifically ambitious risk assessment for invasive plants is not optional. Therefore, there is a pressing need to formulate adaptable, biologically plausible methods and approaches in this emerging field that strike an appropriate balance between the demand for accuracy and precision in predicting risks and...

Assessing Ecological Risk of Invasive Alien Plants in South Korea1

Invasive alien plant species represent an ecological risk to indigenous plants and ecosystems. In this study, the dichotomous system is suggested to assess the ecological risk of invasive plant species. Case studies of noxious alien plants in South Korea were used to develop the system based on environmental risk factors. Assessing ecological risk of invasive alien plants was considered with the following factors: harmful effects to animals or humans, ecological characteristics, invasion time, present state after invasion (dispersion), and availability of resources. Invasive plant risk assessment was based on the methodology for predictive risk assessment used to manage and monitor invasive alien plants in South Korea. Our system enabled us to classify invasive plants in Korea into four grades: (1) noxious species (three categories), (2) monitoring species (five categories), (3) harmless species (innocuous species), and (4) beneficial species. Our assessment system can help land managers monitor invasive alien plant species.Additional index words: Dichotomous system, ranking system.

Ecological risk assessment of transgenic pasture plants: a community gradient modelling approach

AbstractThe extension of transgene technology to pasture species presents new challenges for ecological risk assessment because, unlike most crops, pasture plants are well adapted for persistence in mixed plant communities and are an important source of invasive species worldwide. Despite this, the impact of transgenic pasture plants on native ecosystems remains relatively unstudied. Here we use a community gradient modelling approach to investigate the performance of subterranean clover containing a nutrition‐enhancing transgene over a range of ecologically important grassland communities at a study site in south‐eastern Australia. Our data, which were collected over a full annual growing season, show that the transgenic clover line has different seedling survival and seed dormancy breakdown rates than the commercial non‐transgenic line, which suggests that transgenic populations will decline faster than non‐transgenic ones in perennial native grassland communities but could, under optimal climatic conditions, have potentially higher growth rates in grazed annual grasslands. These results demonstrate that changes to ecologically important demographic parameters can occur in plants containing transgenes that are not typically considered fitness enhancing, and that genotype by environment interactions and management regimes that impact on these parameters may influence the invasiveness of transgenic plants. Our study also demonstrates the utility of incorporating plant community gradient modelling into ecological risk assessment protocols designed for transgenic pasture plants.

Pollen consumption in honey bee larvae: a step forward in the risk assessment of transgenic plants

In order to assess the potential impacts of transgenic plants on larvae of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, information on pollen consumption is needed. We here report on experiments that were conducted with small bee colonies kept in field cages (8 × 14 m) containing only flowering maize plants as protein source. Fully grown worker bee larvae were found to contain between 1720 and 2310 maize pollen grains in their gut before defecation, corresponding to 1.52-2.04 mg of pollen consumed per larva. On average, 74.5% of pollen grains were completely digested while 23.3% were partially digested and 2.2% remained undigested. Our data indicate that the contribution of the protein by directly feeding larvae with pollen is less than 5% in relation to the total amount of protein necessary for complete larval development. We suggest that our measurement for pollen consumption should be taken into account when establishing dose regimes to assess the risk that transgenic plants pose for honey bee larvae. Apis mellifera / pollen consumption / transgenic plant / agrochemical / maize / risk assessment

Viability and longevity of pollen from transgenic and nontransgenic tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) (Poaceae) plants

Pollen is an important vector of gene flow in plants, particularly for outcrossing species like tall fescue. Several aspects of pollination biology were investigated using pollen from transgenic and nontransgenic plants of tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.), the most important forage species worldwide of the Festuca genus. To effectively assess in vitro pollen viability in tall fescue, an optimized germination medium (0.8 mol/L sucrose, 1.28 mmol/L boric acid and 1.27 mmol/L calcium nitrate) was developed. Treatment with relatively high temperatures (36° and 40°C) and high doses of UV-B irradiation (900-1500 μW/cm(2)) reduced pollen viability, while relative humidity did not significantly influence pollen viability. Viability of pollen from transgenic progenies (T1 and T2) was similar to that from seed-derived control plants. Pollen from primary transgenics (T0) and primary regenerants (R0) had various levels of viability. Hand pollination using the primary regenerants and transgenics revealed that no seed set could be obtained when pollen viability was lower than 5%. Pollen from transgenic progenies and nontransgenic control plants could survive up to 22 h under controlled conditions in growth chamber. However, under sunny atmospheric conditions, viability of transgenic and nontransgenic pollen reduced to 5% in 30 min, with a complete loss of viability in 90 min. Under cloudy atmospheric conditions, pollen remained viable up to 240 min, with about 5% viability after 150 min. This report is the first on pollen viability and longevity in transgenic forage grasses and could be useful for risk assessment of transgenic plants.

Haloacetic acids in the aquatic environment. Part I: macrophyte toxicity

Haloacetic acids (HAAs) are contaminants of aquatic ecosystems with numerous sources, both anthropogenic and natural. The toxicity of HAAs to aquatic plants is generally uncharacterized. Laboratory tests were conducted with three macrophytes (Lemna gibba, Myriophyllum sibiricum and Myriophyllum spicatum) to assess the toxicity of five HAAs. Myriophyllum spp. has been proposed as required test species for pesticide registration in North America, but few studies have been conducted under standard test conditions. The HAAs in the present experiments were monochloroacetic acid (MCA), dichloroacetic acid (DCA), trichloroacetic acid (TCA), trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) and chlorodifluoroacetic acid (CDFA). MCA was the most toxic to Myriophyllum spp. with EC50 values ranging from 8 to 12.4 mg/l depending on the endpoint, followed by DCA (EC50 range 62–722.5 mg/l), TCA (EC50 range 49.5–1702.6 mg/l), CDFA (EC50 range 105.3 to >10,000 mg/l) and with TFA (EC50 range 222.1 to 10,000 mg/l) the least toxic. Generally, L. gibba was less sensitive to HAA toxicity than Myriophyllum spp., with the difference in toxicity between them approximately threefold. The range of toxicity within Myriophyllum spp. was normally less than twofold. Statistically, plant length and node number were the most sensitive endpoints as they had the lowest observed coefficients of variation, but they were not the most sensitive to HAA toxicity. Toxicological sensitivity of endpoints varied depending on the measure of effect chosen and the HAA, with morphological endpoints usually an order of magnitude more sensitive than pigments for all plant species. Overall, mass and root measures tended to be the most sensitive indicators of HAA toxicity. The data from this paper were subsequently used in an ecological risk assessment for HAAs and aquatic plants. The assessment found HAAs to be of low risk to aquatic macrophytes and the results are described in the second manuscript of this series.

On the plant-specific impact of different pressurization rates in the estimation of containment failure mode probabilities

Abstract The explicit consideration of different pressurization rates (e.g. fast and slow) in estimating the probabilities of containment failure modes (e.g. leak, rupture, and/or catastrophic rupture) might have a profound effect on the confidence of the containment performance evaluation that is so critical for risk assessment of nuclear power plants. We have performed a bounding analysis for the impact of different pressurization rates on the leak and rupture mode probabilities using models for fast and slow pressurizations. The present models are based on the evaluations of probability distributions that are characterized with the median pressures and their standard deviations, for individual mechanisms of structural failure modes and the nominal break sizes. As a result, we have obtained a quantitative and plant-specific estimate of the impact of the pressurization rates on the leak and rupture containment failure probabilities. The present study showed that the impact was not significant for the specific cases considered in this study and confirmed that the treatment used in the specific cases was conservative.