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Acceptable Risk Analysis for Abrupt Environmental Pollution Accidents in Zhangjiakou City, China

Abrupt environmental pollution accidents cause considerable damage worldwide to the ecological environment, human health, and property. The concept of acceptable risk aims to answer whether or not a given environmental pollution risk exceeds a societally determined criterion. This paper presents a c...

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Autores principales: Du, Xi, Zhang, Zhijiao, Dong, Lei, Liu, Jing, Borthwick, Alistair G. L., Liu, Renzhi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5409643/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28425956
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14040443
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author Du, Xi
Zhang, Zhijiao
Dong, Lei
Liu, Jing
Borthwick, Alistair G. L.
Liu, Renzhi
author_facet Du, Xi
Zhang, Zhijiao
Dong, Lei
Liu, Jing
Borthwick, Alistair G. L.
Liu, Renzhi
author_sort Du, Xi
collection PubMed
description Abrupt environmental pollution accidents cause considerable damage worldwide to the ecological environment, human health, and property. The concept of acceptable risk aims to answer whether or not a given environmental pollution risk exceeds a societally determined criterion. This paper presents a case study on acceptable environmental pollution risk conducted through a questionnaire survey carried out between August and October 2014 in five representative districts and two counties of Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, China. Here, environmental risk primarily arises from accidental water pollution, accidental air pollution, and tailings dam failure. Based on 870 valid questionnaires, demographic and regional differences in public attitudes towards abrupt environmental pollution risks were analyzed, and risk acceptance impact factors determined. The results showed females, people between 21–40 years of age, people with higher levels of education, public servants, and people with higher income had lower risk tolerance. People with lower perceived risk, low-level risk knowledge, high-level familiarity and satisfaction with environmental management, and without experience of environmental accidents had higher risk tolerance. Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that public satisfaction with environmental management was the most significant factor in risk acceptance, followed by perceived risk of abrupt air pollution, occupation, perceived risk of tailings dam failure, and sex. These findings should be helpful to local decision-makers concerned with environmental risk management (e.g., selecting target groups for effective risk communication) in the context of abrupt environmental accidents.
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spelling pubmed-54096432017-05-03 Acceptable Risk Analysis for Abrupt Environmental Pollution Accidents in Zhangjiakou City, China Du, Xi Zhang, Zhijiao Dong, Lei Liu, Jing Borthwick, Alistair G. L. Liu, Renzhi Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Abrupt environmental pollution accidents cause considerable damage worldwide to the ecological environment, human health, and property. The concept of acceptable risk aims to answer whether or not a given environmental pollution risk exceeds a societally determined criterion. This paper presents a case study on acceptable environmental pollution risk conducted through a questionnaire survey carried out between August and October 2014 in five representative districts and two counties of Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, China. Here, environmental risk primarily arises from accidental water pollution, accidental air pollution, and tailings dam failure. Based on 870 valid questionnaires, demographic and regional differences in public attitudes towards abrupt environmental pollution risks were analyzed, and risk acceptance impact factors determined. The results showed females, people between 21–40 years of age, people with higher levels of education, public servants, and people with higher income had lower risk tolerance. People with lower perceived risk, low-level risk knowledge, high-level familiarity and satisfaction with environmental management, and without experience of environmental accidents had higher risk tolerance. Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that public satisfaction with environmental management was the most significant factor in risk acceptance, followed by perceived risk of abrupt air pollution, occupation, perceived risk of tailings dam failure, and sex. These findings should be helpful to local decision-makers concerned with environmental risk management (e.g., selecting target groups for effective risk communication) in the context of abrupt environmental accidents. MDPI 2017-04-20 2017-04 /pmc/articles/PMC5409643/ /pubmed/28425956 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14040443 Text en © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Du, Xi
Zhang, Zhijiao
Dong, Lei
Liu, Jing
Borthwick, Alistair G. L.
Liu, Renzhi
Acceptable Risk Analysis for Abrupt Environmental Pollution Accidents in Zhangjiakou City, China
title Acceptable Risk Analysis for Abrupt Environmental Pollution Accidents in Zhangjiakou City, China
title_full Acceptable Risk Analysis for Abrupt Environmental Pollution Accidents in Zhangjiakou City, China
title_fullStr Acceptable Risk Analysis for Abrupt Environmental Pollution Accidents in Zhangjiakou City, China
title_full_unstemmed Acceptable Risk Analysis for Abrupt Environmental Pollution Accidents in Zhangjiakou City, China
title_short Acceptable Risk Analysis for Abrupt Environmental Pollution Accidents in Zhangjiakou City, China
title_sort acceptable risk analysis for abrupt environmental pollution accidents in zhangjiakou city, china
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5409643/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28425956
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14040443
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