IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v34y2014i7p1196-1207.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Concerns, Challenges, and Directions of Development for the Issue of Representing Uncertainty in Risk Assessment

Author

Listed:
  • Roger Flage
  • Terje Aven
  • Enrico Zio
  • Piero Baraldi

Abstract

In the analysis of the risk associated to rare events that may lead to catastrophic consequences with large uncertainty, it is questionable that the knowledge and information available for the analysis can be reflected properly by probabilities. Approaches other than purely probabilistic have been suggested, for example, using interval probabilities, possibilistic measures, or qualitative methods. In this article, we look into the problem and identify a number of issues that are foundational for its treatment. The foundational issues addressed reflect on the position that “probability is perfect” and take into open consideration the need for an extended framework for risk assessment that reflects the separation that practically exists between analyst and decisionmaker.

Suggested Citation

  • Roger Flage & Terje Aven & Enrico Zio & Piero Baraldi, 2014. "Concerns, Challenges, and Directions of Development for the Issue of Representing Uncertainty in Risk Assessment," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(7), pages 1196-1207, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:34:y:2014:i:7:p:1196-1207
    DOI: 10.1111/risa.12247
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.12247
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/risa.12247?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dubois, Didier, 2006. "Possibility theory and statistical reasoning," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 47-69, November.
    2. James Berger & Elías Moreno & Luis Pericchi & M. Bayarri & José Bernardo & Juan Cano & Julián Horra & Jacinto Martín & David Ríos-Insúa & Bruno Betrò & A. Dasgupta & Paul Gustafson & Larry Wasserman &, 1994. "An overview of robust Bayesian analysis," TEST: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 3(1), pages 5-124, June.
    3. Stanley Kaplan & B. John Garrick, 1981. "On The Quantitative Definition of Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 1(1), pages 11-27, March.
    4. Aven, Terje, 2010. "On how to define, understand and describe risk," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 95(6), pages 623-631.
    5. Aven, Terje, 2013. "Practical implications of the new risk perspectives," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 136-145.
    6. D. Warner North, 2010. "Probability Theory and Consistent Reasoning," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 377-380, March.
    7. Aven, T., 2011. "Interpretations of alternative uncertainty representations in a reliability and risk analysis context," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 353-360.
    8. Stephen D. Unwin, 1986. "A Fuzzy Set Theoretic Foundation for Vagueness in Uncertainty Analysis," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(1), pages 27-34, March.
    9. Terje Aven & Ortwin Renn, 2009. "On risk defined as an event where the outcome is uncertain," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, January.
    10. Rob P. Rechard, 1999. "Historical Relationship Between Performance Assessment for Radioactive Waste Disposal and Other Types of Risk Assessment," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(5), pages 763-807, October.
    11. Aven, Terje, 2008. "A semi-quantitative approach to risk analysis, as an alternative to QRAs," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 93(6), pages 790-797.
    12. Didier Dubois, 2010. "Representation, Propagation, and Decision Issues in Risk Analysis Under Incomplete Probabilistic Information," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 361-368, March.
    13. Durga Rao Karanki & Hari Shankar Kushwaha & Ajit Kumar Verma & Srividya Ajit, 2009. "Uncertainty Analysis Based on Probability Bounds (P‐Box) Approach in Probabilistic Safety Assessment," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(5), pages 662-675, May.
    14. Piero Baraldi & Enrico Zio, 2008. "A Combined Monte Carlo and Possibilistic Approach to Uncertainty Propagation in Event Tree Analysis," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(5), pages 1309-1326, October.
    15. Helton, Jon C., 2011. "Quantification of margins and uncertainties: Conceptual and computational basis," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 96(9), pages 976-1013.
    16. Stan Kaplan, 1997. "The Words of Risk Analysis," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(4), pages 407-417, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Terje Aven & Ortwin Renn, 2015. "An Evaluation of the Treatment of Risk and Uncertainties in the IPCC Reports on Climate Change," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(4), pages 701-712, April.
    2. Nicola Pedroni & Enrico Zio & Alberto Pasanisi & Mathieu Couplet, 2017. "A critical discussion and practical recommendations on some issues relevant to the non-probabilistic treatment of uncertainty in engineering risk assessment," Post-Print hal-01652230, HAL.
    3. Nicola Pedroni & Enrico Zio & Alberto Pasanisi & Mathieu Couplet, 2017. "A Critical Discussion and Practical Recommendations on Some Issues Relevant to the Nonprobabilistic Treatment of Uncertainty in Engineering Risk Assessment," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(7), pages 1315-1340, July.
    4. Aven, Terje, 2020. "Three influential risk foundation papers from the 80s and 90s: Are they still state-of-the-art?," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    5. Zio, E., 2018. "The future of risk assessment," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 176-190.
    6. Terje Aven, 2012. "Foundational Issues in Risk Assessment and Risk Management," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(10), pages 1647-1656, October.
    7. Goerlandt, Floris & Montewka, Jakub, 2015. "Maritime transportation risk analysis: Review and analysis in light of some foundational issues," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 115-134.
    8. Henrik Hassel & Alexander Cedergren, 2019. "Exploring the Conceptual Foundation of Continuity Management in the Context of Societal Safety," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(7), pages 1503-1519, July.
    9. Hu, Lunhu & Kang, Rui & Pan, Xing & Zuo, Dujun, 2020. "Risk assessment of uncertain random system—Level-1 and level-2 joint propagation of uncertainty and probability in fault tree analysis," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    10. Aven, Terje & Zio, Enrico, 2011. "Some considerations on the treatment of uncertainties in risk assessment for practical decision making," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 64-74.
    11. Zio, Enrico & Aven, Terje, 2011. "Uncertainties in smart grids behavior and modeling: What are the risks and vulnerabilities? How to analyze them?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(10), pages 6308-6320, October.
    12. Berner, Christine Louise & Flage, Roger, 2017. "Creating risk management strategies based on uncertain assumptions and aspects from assumption-based planning," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 10-19.
    13. Inger Lise Johansen & Marvin Rausand, 2014. "Defining complexity for risk assessment of sociotechnical systems: A conceptual framework," Journal of Risk and Reliability, , vol. 228(3), pages 272-290, June.
    14. Nicola Pedroni & Enrico Zio, 2013. "Uncertainty Analysis in Fault Tree Models with Dependent Basic Events," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(6), pages 1146-1173, June.
    15. Tu Duong Le Duy & Laurence Dieulle & Dominique Vasseur & Christophe Bérenguer & Mathieu Couplet, 2013. "An alternative comprehensive framework using belief functions for parameter and model uncertainty analysis in nuclear probabilistic risk assessment applications," Journal of Risk and Reliability, , vol. 227(5), pages 471-490, October.
    16. Roger Flage & Terje Aven & Piero Baraldi & Enrico Zio, 2012. "An imprecision importance measure for uncertainty representations interpreted as lower and upper probabilities, with special emphasis on possibility theory," Journal of Risk and Reliability, , vol. 226(6), pages 656-665, December.
    17. Max Boholm & Niklas Möller & Sven Ove Hansson, 2016. "The Concepts of Risk, Safety, and Security: Applications in Everyday Language," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(2), pages 320-338, February.
    18. Roger Flage & Piero Baraldi & Enrico Zio & Terje Aven, 2013. "Probability and Possibility‐Based Representations of Uncertainty in Fault Tree Analysis," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(1), pages 121-133, January.
    19. Terje Aven, 2013. "On Funtowicz and Ravetz's “Decision Stake—System Uncertainties” Structure and Recently Developed Risk Perspectives," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(2), pages 270-280, February.
    20. Aven, T. & Steen, R., 2010. "The concept of ignorance in a risk assessment and risk management context," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 95(11), pages 1117-1122.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:34:y:2014:i:7:p:1196-1207. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.