There is an increasing dissatisfaction about how risk is regulated, leading to vivid debates about the use of 'risk assessment' and 'precaution'. As a result, academics, government officials and industry leaders are calling for new approaches and fresh ideas. This book provides a historical and topical perspective on the alternative concept of 'Tolerability of Risk' and its concrete regulatory applications. In the UK, Tolerability of Risk has been developed into a sophisticated framework, particularly within the health and safety sectors. It is expected to guide decision-makers when applying their legal obligation of keeping risks as low as practically reasonable. Could Tolerability of Risk become a wider source of inspiration across the full scope of risk analysis and management? Written by leading academics and risk practitioners from industry and government, The Tolerability of Risk presents a summary of theoretical perspectives on risk approaches, providing a detailed elicitation of the methods and approaches used to build the Tolerability of Risk framework and examining the prospect of universal application of that framework. From nuclear power to environmental pollution, climate change and drug testing, the Tolerability of Risk framework may offer a workable, pragmatic solution for balancing risks against the costs involved in controlling them, as well as developing the institutional capacity to make effective decisions in all jurisdictions worldwide.

There is an increasing dissatisfaction about how risk is regulated, leading to vivid debates about the use of 'risk assessment' and 'precaution'. As a result, academics, government officials and industry leaders are calling for new approaches and fresh ideas. This book provides a historical and topical perspective on the alternative concept of 'Tolerability of Risk' and its concrete regulatory applications. In the UK, Tolerability of Risk has been developed into a sophisticated framework, particularly within the health and safety sectors. It is expected to guide decision-makers when applying their legal obligation of keeping risks as low as practically reasonable. Could Tolerability of Risk become a wider source of inspiration across the full scope of risk analysis and management? Written by leading academics and risk practitioners from industry and government, The Tolerability of Risk presents a summary of theoretical perspectives on risk approaches, providing a detailed elicitation of the methods and approaches used to build the Tolerability of Risk framework and examining the prospect of universal application of that framework. From nuclear power to environmental pollution, climate change and drug testing, the Tolerability of Risk framework may offer a workable, pragmatic solution for balancing risks against the costs involved in controlling them, as well as developing the institutional capacity to make effective decisions in all jurisdictions worldwide.

Can we better predict or mitigate the consequences of natural disasters, such as earthquakes and hurricanes? Can we reduce the number of oil spills? And what should be done to clean up the mess when something does goes wrong? Why are people concerned about nuclear plants, but so reckless when they go skiing, or when they drive their motor cars? And how can we ensure that experts and ordinary citizens exchange meaningful information about hazards? Over the past fifty years or so, eminent scholars from the decision sciences, geography, sociology, anthropology, and many other fields, have offered useful pointers towards finding an answer to these and other crucial questions. Their prolific and converging efforts have established Risk Analysis as a vivid new discipline, a discipline which this new Routledge collection enables users to discover-or to understand better. The collection conveys essential lessons about how risks can be better assessed. Sophisticated models about the probability and magnitude of harms have been developed and tested in a variety of fields, for example, by engineers trying to build safer plants, or by toxicologists trying to understand the pathways of pollutants. The materials gathered here also help us to understand how powerful perception drivers shape our views of different risks and, as a consequence, how risk communication may be best conducted. Risk also brings together and makes sense of a body of knowledge that has allowed the development of specific methods to join together these two crucial elements into a coherent management 'whole'.