ABSTRACT
Risk assessment is designed to offer an opportunity to understand a system better by adding an orderliness and completeness to a problem evaluation. Many of the parameters and assumptions used in hazard, exposure, and risk evaluation studies tend to have high degrees of uncertainties associated with them. Thus, it is common practice for safe design and analysis to model risks such that risk levels estimated for management decisions are overestimated. A major difficulty in decision making resides in the uncertainties of system characteristics for the situation at hand. Uncertainty is the absence of the best estimate for the magnitude or probability of occurrence of a given variable. Hazardous waste management generally involves competing objectives. The prime objective for hazardous waste disposal consists of minimizing both hazards and waste management costs, given appropriate constraints. Comparison between risks, benefits, and costs for various corrective action strategies is a necessary part of an overall risk management program.
