Prometheus unbound : challenges of risk evaluation, risk classification, and risk management

Abstract

At the end of the nineties the field of risk assessment and management needs some new impulses for handling risks of nature, technologies, and human activities. This report introduces a new proposal with respect to the three main elements of risk analysis: risk assessment, risk evaluation, and risk management. First, the report demonstrates the need for new approaches in risk evaluation and management. Second, it analyzes the problems that need to be addressed when handling natural and technical disasters. Third, it presents a new classification scheme for characterizing risks. Based on this new classification, risk management requirements and desired political actions are described at the end. For dealing with risks in a rational fashion, it is necessary to characterize risks and use the parameters of characterization as tools for designing appropriate actions. This reports suggests a set of criteria that one can use in evaluating risks. These criteria include: • Damage potential, i.e. the amount of damage that the hazard can cause; • probability of occurrence, i.e. the likelihood that a specific damage will occur; • incertitude, i.e., the remaining uncertainties that are not covered by the assessment of probabilities (subdivided in statistical uncertainties, genuine uncertainty, and ignorance); • ubiquity which defines the geographic dispersion of potential damages (intragenerational justice); • persistency which defines the temporal extension of potential damages (intergenerational justice); • irreversibility which describes the impossible restoration of the situation to the state before the damage occurred (possible restoration are e.g. reforestation and cleaning of water); • delay effects which characterize the time of latency between the initial event and the actual impact of damage. The time of latency could be of physical, chemical or biological nature; and • potential of mobilization which is understood as violation of individual, social or cultural interests and values generating social conflicts and psychological reactions by affected people. Theoretically a huge number of risk types can be developed by combining the eight criteria. Such a huge number of cases would not be useful for the purpose to develop a comprehensive risk classification. In reality, some criteria are tightly coupled and other combinations are certainly theoretically possible, but there are not any or only few empirical examples. As a result of a tidious screening process, six different risk types were classified based on the assessment whether they reach or exceed one of the possible extreme qualities mentioned above. For each of the six risk classes special risk management strategies were developed. With respect to natural disasters three different management regimes should be distinguished: classic risk management (dealing with risk avoidance and reduction): uncertainty management (dealing with precautionary measures and warning systems); and ambiguity management (dealing with measures to deal with conflicts among experts and between experts and social groups). The main arguments of this report will be published in a book that is scheduled to be available in the fall of 2000.