Geoinformation support for environmental risk assessment in countries of European Union

Abstract

An assessment of the risk of environmental management for the countries of the European Union was carried out on the basis of two main criteria — natural hazard and protection from natural disasters. For this purpose, specific geoinformation support was used to calculate the risk according to the author's methodology. Natural hazard consists of natural processes of various origins — lithospheric, hydrospheric, atmospheric and biospheric, which are considered dangerous within the entire state according to official data, — as well as of protection from natural disasters and catastrophes at the state level. The last criterion is calculated on the basis of a number of socio-economic and environmental indicators for the EU countries: gross domestic product, the share of the working-age population and the population living below the poverty line, telecommunications and transport coefficients, life expectancy and literacy of the population, child mortality, and the intensity of environmental problems. The relationship between the level of economic development and the level of risk of environmental management in individual EU countries has not been established. So, highly developed countries fall into all risk categories: Italy, Austria and Germany — high risk, France, Netherlands and Belgium — medium risk, Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark — low risk. Conversely, underdeveloped countries are also present in all categories: Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania — high risk, Latvia, Lithuania — medium risk, Estonia — low risk. Therefore, the assessment of the risk of environmental management, its subsequent analysis and management of natural and natural-man-made emergencies, one should not rely only on indicators of the level of economic development in countries, for example, GDP, as well as on environmental standards established, albeit at the international level, such as MPC, MPE of harmful substances in soils, plants, water bodies, atmospheric air, etc. Consideration of direct indicators and damage from past events when assessing the risk of natural resource use also has a number of drawbacks. A differentiated approach is required.