Engineering Decisions for Life Quality : How Safe Is Safe Enough?

Engineering Decisions for Life Quality: How Safe is Safe Enough? provides a foundation and a theoretical basis for managing risk to an acceptable level under the real-world constraint of limited resources. The focus is not on risks as such, but on what can be done to maximize the positive outcomes of risk in terms of improvements to the quality of life.

The principal focus of Engineering Decisions for Life Quality: How Safe is Safe Enough? is on the development of guidance for establishing rational standards of practice. Standards should meet the requirement of utilizing resources to achieve the maximum net overall benefit to society within society’s capacity to commit such resources.

The ideas discussed within this book will be of interest to engineers; advanced undergraduate and graduate students; public health officials; and risk specialists.

J.S. Nathwani is Professor and Ontario Research Chair in Public Policy for Sustainable Energy Management at the Faculty of Engineering and Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada. He is also Executive Director at the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy and Director of the Institute for Risk Research. Professor Nathwani holds a BSc, MSc and PhD in Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry from the University of Toronto.

M.D. Pandey is Professor and NSERC-UNENE Industrial Research Chair for the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He has a BEng degree in Civil Engineering from Bhopal University, India, as well as an MSc and PhD in the same subject from the University of Waterloo.

N.C. Lind is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He received his MSc in Civil and Structural Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark and his PhD in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics fron the University of Illinois.