IMPORTÂNCIA DA INCERTEZA DA MEDIÇÃO PARA AVALIAÇÃO DOS INDICADORES DE DESEMPENHO AMBIENTAL

Abstract

Environmental indicators have beenconstructed and used as a tool to support environmentalmanagement systems in making decisions to improve theperformance in industrial units. However, there is always anuncertainty, which can be understood as a degree ofremaining doubt associated with the indicator, and it shouldbe considered for making decisions. This paper aims topresent the methodology to estimate the uncertainty ofenvironmental indicators and their importance in anenvironmental management system. We conducted a casestudy in a petrochemical industry in Bahia to assess theuncertainty associated with the indicator related to effluentsgeneration. The method used to estimate the uncertainty wasbased on the GUIDE (Guide to the Expression ofUncertainty in Measurement). The results showed that theestimation of the uncertainty corresponds to a value higherthan the appropriate one for decision making, but could beused for assessing trends in environmental indicators.