An Integration of Fault Tree Analysis and Environmental Failure Mode and Effect Analysis in Risk Assessment of Wetland Ecosystems: A Case Study of Anzali Wetland, Iran

In this study, environmental risk assessment (ERA) was utilized to identify and assess the risks of Anzali wetland on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea in northern Iran. Fault tree analysis (FTA) was used to identify environmental risk factors and environmental failure mode; and effect analysis (EFMEA) was used to assess the risks. Based on the results of ERA, rural and urban wastewater and agricultural wastewater with the RPN 125, non-native species and soil erosion and sediment transport in rivers with RPN 100 and industrial wastewater with RPN 80 are the most important risk factors. According to the conducted ranking, 20% of the risk factors have low level risk while 53.3% placed on the moderate level risk and 26.7% belonged to the highrisk level group. At the end, management strategies to control and manage the environmental risks for Anzali wetland were proposed. This study shows the effectiveness of the FTA method in identification of the environmental risk factors and EFMEA method in risk quantity estimation.