Center for Technology, Environment, and Development (CENTED)
Founded in 1978, CENTED is internationally recognized as one of the
oldest and most prominent centers for the study of natural and
technological hazards in the United States. Even prior to its foundation,
CENTED researchers were active for more than a decade in studies of
natural hazards, human responses to disasters, nuclear testing, and global
environmental change.
Interdisciplinary research has always been CENTED's forte, ranging from
theoretical work on hazard analysis, hazard taxonomies, vulnerability,
environmental equity, comparative risk assessment, and risk perception to
more applied work on risk communication, hazardous (including radioactive)
waste management, corporate risk management, hazardous waste
transportation, emergency planning, pollution prevention, and public
participation.
CENTED researchers have long been active in the work of the National Research
Council, chairing major committees on risk assessment and participating in many
others. Other advisory work has included participation in: the advisory board of
the Energy Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory; various advisory
committees for the former Office of Technology Assessment; the Environmental
Protection Agency's assessment of acid rain; the EPA's Strategic Options
Subcommittee on relative risk reduction; various advisory committees for Sandia
Laboratories; and the advisory committee to the State of Massachusetts on
hazardous waste management. CENTED researchers have also participated in several
broad-based reviews, including: a review of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's
state-of-the-art document on probabilistic risk analysis; and a citizen review
of catastrophic risk management at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility.
Following the restructuring of the Institute in 1994, two former research
centers were integrated with CENTED to add two distinctively new research
directions to CENTED's long-standing focus on risks and hazards. Activities
initiated under the former Center for Global Urban Studies investigate the role
of economic and industrial changes in shaping the impacts of human systems on
resource use and the global environment. Activities initiated under the former
Center for Land, Water, and Society included several projects on global land-use
and land-cover change, a project on gender and land/water use in East Africa,
and a comparison of the perceptions of global change in the U.S. with
perceptions in Russia. As a result of this activity, the Insitute played a key
role in the development of the research effort of the International
Geosphere-Biosphere/Human Dimensions of Global Change programs (IGBP/HDGP) on
land-use/land-cover change (LUCC), the only project in the international global
change community that is a joint effort between the natural and social
sciences.
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