Soft Methods for Treating Uncertainties: Applications in the Field of Environmental Risks

摘要

In recent years, soft methods for treating uncertainties have reached the field of environmental risks. This paper presents some specific characteristics of this field and how they can affect the choice of methods and the way of representing results. Example applications illustrate the use of such methods in several areas of environmental risks: soil and groundwater contamination, health risks and risks related to the underground storage of carbon dioxide for climate change mitigation. A potential drawback of these methods in a decision-making framework is the fact that decision-makers do not like to work with multiple indicators, i.e. upper and lower bounds on the probability of exceeding a certain risk threshold. A way to avoid this difficulty is proposed, based on a weighted average of optimistic and pessimistic bounds on risk focal elements.