Environmental Risk Assessment & Management Flashcards
7 cards from real CEP practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Environmental Risk Assessment & Management flashcards as text
Which risk assessment methodology uses probability-consequence matrices to prioritize environmental risks?
Answer: Risk Ranking and Filtering
Risk Ranking and Filtering (RRF) uses probability-consequence matrices to systematically compare and prioritize environmental risks.
Under CERCLA, the 'potentially responsible party' (PRP) liability standard is best described as:
Answer: Strict, joint, and several
CERCLA imposes strict, joint, and several liability on PRPs, meaning any one party can be held responsible for total cleanup costs regardless of fault.
A company discovers trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination in groundwater beneath its facility. The FIRST step in environmental risk management should be:
Answer: Notification of regulatory authorities and receptor assessment
Notifying regulators and assessing potential receptors is the first step to understand exposure pathways and legal obligations before selecting remediation.
The concept of 'risk transfer' in environmental risk management most commonly involves:
Answer: Purchasing environmental liability insurance
Risk transfer in environmental management typically refers to shifting financial exposure through instruments like environmental liability insurance policies.
What is the primary purpose of a Conceptual Site Model (CSM) in environmental risk assessment?
Answer: Visualizing contaminant sources, pathways, and receptors
A CSM graphically represents the relationships between contamination sources, transport pathways, and potential human or ecological receptors to guide risk assessment.
Which exposure route typically dominates risk calculations for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in indoor air from subsurface contamination?
Answer: Inhalation of vapor intrusion
Vapor intrusion—where VOCs migrate from subsurface soil or groundwater into indoor air—is typically the dominant inhalation exposure route for VOC contamination.
In ecological risk assessment, the 'assessment endpoint' differs from the 'measurement endpoint' in that:
Answer: Assessment endpoints define what to protect; measurement endpoints are observable metrics used to evaluate protection
Assessment endpoints define the valued ecological entity and its attribute to be protected, while measurement endpoints are measurable surrogates used to evaluate whether that protection is achieved.