Environmental Decision Making and Risk Management: Selected Essays by Ian Langford. R. K. Turner, S. Georgiou, and I. J. Bateman, eds. 2004. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA. 307 pp. $115 hardback.

Environmental risk assessment and risk management have always been hampered by three types of uncertainty: the external or objective uncertainty inherent in the limits of scientific knowledge, the internal or subjective uncertainty introduced by cultural or institutional bias, and the lack of precision in the analytical tools at our disposal. These uncertainties, in turn, have hindered efforts at policy development and, some would argue, made the public skeptical of program proposals based on such analyses. This collection of essays, authored or coauthored by Ian Langford of the University of East Anglia, breaks new ground in both the treatment of introduced bias and the improvement of analytical methods, thereby greatly strengthening the analytical underpinnings of public policy.