Fuzzy assessment of human-health risks due to air pollution

摘要

Uncertainty of input data creates fuzzy conditions for assessing and forecasting ecological risk and risks associated with human health due to environmental pollution. Many uncertainties are difficult to eliminate and they do not have sufficient structure so that they can be modelled or described by probabilities and probability processes. This paper describes the application of a formalism of fuzzy sets to model and to assess the risk of carcinogenesis and additional mortality associated with air-pollution. With this formalism it is possible to handle uncertainty by means of modelling. A formulated approach makes it possible to assess the extent of expert confidence that the risk of carcinogenicity (risk of additional mortality) does not exceed some definite value that can be presented both as an accurate and as a fuzzy number.