Risk Communication is Important in Environmental Engineering during COVID-19

Risk “is the possibility of an unfortunate occurrence” (SRA 2018b). The study of risk, and its mitigation, is risk analysis, and includes assessment, characterization, communication, governance, management, perception, and policy of risks to individuals, to public- and private-sector organizations, and to society at local, regional, national, or global levels (SRA 2018a). Assessing the significance of a risk, developing interventions to manage a risk, and communicating both the significance and the interventions is a responsibility of professional engineers who have an ethical obligation to “hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public” (NSPE 2019). Environmental engineers, in particular, understand the importance of engaging successfully with the public in risk communication—lessons we have learned from industrial tragedies such as the 1984 Bhopal disaster and municipal tragedies such as the 2014 Flint, Michigan, water crisis