Abstract:
This thesis charts a research journey through the disciplines of waste chemistry,
environmental risk assessment, policy analysis and corporate risk governance since
award of the candidate’s PhD in 1990. The insights gained present a distinctive
perspective on resource and environmental risk management - assessments of risk must
reflect our understanding of the science and evidence that supports them; and the
protection of public and environmental health, as an overarching motive, requires
greater prominence if the confidence of citizens in the Government and industry
handling of risk is to be secured.
Waste management is risk management and without an understanding of the
fundamental science and engineering of wastes and how they behave in the
environment, process technologies for their treatment can not be optimised, nor
regulatory oversight designed properly to protect public health and the environment.
The candidate’s research on the chemical characterisation of complex wastes and their
interaction with soils, waters and air, offers a more optimistic assessment of these
risks, at least within developed nations. This said, technical assessments of risk are
insufficient, in isolation, to secure the confidence of communities, investors, or the
wider citizenry. The motives and values of process operators and regulators that
oversee operations are as critical as technical demonstrations of environmental safety.
The recent contributions in this thesis examine organisational competencies in
preventative risk management, specifically within the water sector as it responds to
international calls for improved risk governance.
In concert, the candidate’s contributions and practical achievements in resource
and environmental risk management reported here represent a unique and substantive
body of problem-oriented research, directed at reconciling societal unease about waste
with our responsibilities for its safe management. Significant insights are made on the
reuse of hazardous and carbonaceous wastes, on the characterisation, fate and transport
of hydrocarbons in the environment, on the practice of environmental risk assessment
and the organisational competencies required to manage risk to the levels of
stakeholder confidence expected in the 21
st
century.
