Generic guidelines versus site-specific assessments: Does marriage make sense?
- Environment Canada, Ottawa, Ontario (Canada)
The maintenance, protection and restoration of a high level of environmental quality requires the availability of practical scientific tools. Environmental quality guidelines (also called criteria) are one such scientific tool that help measure progress towards these goals. These guidelines provide scientific benchmarks that can offer consistency and clarity in defining scientific measures for environmental quality that are easily understood, communicated, and implemented as the basis for management decisions. At the same time, debate exists over the use of generic guidelines versus site-specific risk assessments. It is the contention that generic and site-specific approaches are not mutually exclusive, but complementary decision-support tools and that any apparent controversy stems from an incomplete understanding of the nature and intent of generic environmental quality guidelines or from the use of guidelines in the absence of a coherent framework. The authors advocate an approach that marries the strengths of the generic and site-specific approaches and promotes consistent, scientifically-defensible decisions that support broad societal goals for environmental protection. Using Canadian environmental quality guidelines as an example, they provide an overview of the role of environmental quality guidelines in decision-making, with concrete examples of their implementation in addressing specific environmental quality issues.
- OSTI ID:
- 212044
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9511137-; ISBN 1-880611-03-1; TRN: IM9617%%360
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2. Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) world conference, Vancouver (Canada), 5-9 Nov 1995; Other Information: PBD: 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of Second SETAC world congress (16. annual meeting): Abstract book. Global environmental protection: Science, politics, and common sense; PB: 378 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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