Tools for Addressing Cumulative Impacts on Human Health and the Environment
Tools for Addressing Cumulative Impacts on Human Health and the Environment
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DOI：
10.1089/env.2014.0016
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发表时间：
2014-08-01
影响因子：
2
通讯作者：
Raffensperger, Carolyn
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Scammell, Madeleine Kangsen;Montague, Peter;Raffensperger, Carolyn
“累积影响”是指长期压力源组合对人类健康和环境造成的总体危害。累积影响正在造成三种影响：生态系统退化（例如海洋和北方森林）、人类疾病和社区负担过重，这是环境不公正的标志。问题的核心在于美国和欧洲基于风险的现代监管体系，该体系并非旨在理解或管理累积影响，并且允许累积影响现在，一些社区、规划者和监管机构正在寻找补充传统基于风险的方法，使用创新的新工具来评估和决策累积影响，包括指数、绘图和筛选，这些努力既为政策提供了信息，又为旨在减少累积影响的新的预防性决策结构指明了道路。
"Cumulative impacts'' refers to the total harm to human health and the environment resulting from combinations of stressors over time. Cumulative impacts are creating three kinds of effects: degraded ecosystems (such as oceans and boreal forests), human diseases, and disproportionately burdened communities, which are the hallmark of environmental injustice. At the heart of the problem lie the modern risk-based regulatory systems of the United States and Europe, which are not designed to understand or manage cumulative impacts and which have permitted an accumulation of harmful activities and effects. Alternative, precautionary regulatory approaches have been recommended but not yet widely implemented. Now some communities, planners, and regulators are finding ways to supplement traditional risk-based approaches, using innovative new tools for assessment and decision-making in the face of cumulative impacts, including indexes, mapping, and screening. These efforts both inform policy and serve as exemplary models. Together they point the way toward new, precautionary decision structures aimed at reducing cumulative impacts.