Environmental risk

Environmental risk is related to the production, management and distribution of goods, services or products of industrial processes, deriving both from the primary and secondary sectors (agriculture and industry), as well as from the tertiary sector (so-called "services"), which may constitute a cause of accidents with short-term effects on the health of the population.

Although the alteration of the physical-chemical parameters of the environment can be caused by exceptional natural events, such as secondary volcanic phenomena, the environmental risk must be considered primarily an anthropogenic risk.

The sector legislation, while providing for a regime of ordinary management on environmental issues, does not exclude the use of emergency and extraordinary procedures when the health of the population residing in an area at risk is in danger.

In this context, the Civil Protection Department is increasingly called upon to intervene on complex issues ranging from waste to water pollution, from electrosmog, to the problems related to the cessation of the use of asbestos, although these issues do not necessarily involve recourse to the resolution of the state of emergency and the issuance of civil protection ordinances.