Incorporating Risk and Uncertainty into Environmental Evaluation: an Annotated Bibliography

The field review group members that provide complete Program direction and their District or Division affiliations are Mr. This report was prepared to provide assistance to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) in beginning to assess risk and uncertainty in the evaluation of environmental investments. The literature review presented in this report was developed as an initial effort for the " Incorporating Risk and Uncertainty into Environmental Evaluation " work unit of the Corps' Evaluation of Environmental Investments Research Program (EEIRP). The products of the EEIRP provide Corps planners with methodologies and techniques to aid in developing supportable environmental restoration and mitigation projects and plans. This literature review is primarily for Corps personnel, but it has two audiences. It serves as both a primer on the generic risk analysis literature that will help planners find the tools they need to do risk analysis, as well as a gateway to help more experienced personnel find their way into the environmental resource risk analysis literature. The first task in this research was to review the Corps' existing risk analysis guidance to determine how it may be useful in crafting the future development of risk and uncertainty analysis guidelines for evaluating environmental investments. The review begins with an introduction to the concept of ecosystem restoration. To provide a contextual approach to the review, the generic notion of uncertainty is considered in the ecosystem restoration planning process. A taxonomy of uncertainty is offered as a starting point for understanding the types and sources of uncertainty encountered in environmental resources planning. The context begins with a review of two different ways to look at probabilities. Next, there is a generic discussion of the types of quantities encountered in ecosystem restoration planning that can be uncertain. The different types of quantities that are uncertain can have different sources of uncertainty, so a discussion of the sources of uncertainty follows. The contextual information looks at possible sources of uncertainty that may be encountered in an ecosystem restoration planning framework. The remainder of Chapter Two comprises the review of specific Corps' risk analysis guidance. Existing Corps guidance for risk analysis tends to consist of two types: 1) general concepts, principles, and tools as discussed in manuals and reports; and 2) detailed and specific guidance as presented in Engineer Circulars (EC's) and Engineer Technical Letters (ETL's). There is much in the former guidance that can be readily incorporated …