Increasing awareness of exposure to environmental risks has focused attention on measures that would give greater assurance that such risks are effectively managed and that the adverse consequences of risky activities are mitigated. Implementing such actions is made more difficult by the uncertainties of environmental changes, their often delayed impacts, the great importance attached to extremely small risks, and the lack of clear measures of the values of environmental losses. Findings from recent behavioral studies of people's time preferences, valuations of losses relative to gains, and risk perceptions are providing information that should lead to more effective risk management strategies.
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