The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is required by federal statute and regulation to address the environmental risks of dredging and disposal of dredged material as it carries out its responsibility for maintaining U.S. navigation channels. Risk assessment is seen as a way to effectively manage the environmental data collected to support decision making. In its environmental application, risk assessment acknowledges the ever-present existence of uncertainty in decision making and promotes the application of methods for describing the impact of uncertainty on decision making. Risk assessment also provides measures for doing comparative analysis, which is particularly important considering that in many cases managers are asked to decide among a range of disposal options for the dredged material. The Corps of Engineers currently has a research program called the Dredging Operations Environmental Research (DOER) Program. It is an 8-year, $32 million research program that has a risk focus area as one of its components. The Corps is also using risk assessment as a way to prioritize how to use research funds in helping to resolve and clarify the dominant uncertainties.