Science and Medicine

Environmental hazard

An environmental hazard is something which is hazardous, either to the natural environment or of the natural environment and which is normally present in the specific environment and is dangerous to people present in that environment. Well-known examples of hazards to the environment include potential oil spills, water pollution, slash and burn deforestation, air pollution, ground fissures, and build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide. They may apply to a particular part of the environment (slash and burn deforestation) or to the environment as a whole (carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere).. Similarly, a hazard of an environment may be inherent in the whole of that environment, like a drowning hazard is inherent to the general underwater environment, or localised, like potential shark attack is a hazard of those parts of the ocean where sharks that are likely to attack people are likely to exist. An active volcano may be a hazard to the environment, whether natural or artificial, and at the same time a hazard in and of the environment.

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See also

• ▸Graça Freitas
• ▸1930s
• ▸Childhood chronic illness

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