Risk Engineering
Course structure
The risk-engineering.org course materials cover the various phases of the risk management process: hazard identification, risk analysis, risk evaluation and risk treatment.
Deterministic hazard analysis
Covers the deterministic approach to hazard identification and consequence assessment. This consists of identifying hazards that could lead to dangerous situations, analyzing a small number of accident scenarios that could lead to maximal damage, and designing preventive or protective barriers that prevent unacceptable levels of damage from an accident. Important notions are the plausible worst case scenario and the maximum foreseeable loss.
Probabilistic risk analysis
The probabilistic approach to safety, in which the severity and likelihood of adverse events are estimated in a quantitative manner. This approach involves the consideration of the set of all possible accident scenarios to estimate a level of risk.
Risk management and decision-making
Once hazards have been identified, their possible consequences assessed and the level of risk has been quantified, the decision-making phase of risk management begins. This involves strategic choices on the organization’s risk appetite, risk perception, risk aversion, benefit-cost analysis and decision-making under uncertainty.
You may also be interested in:
- some information on careers in risk engineering
- discussion of important concepts in safety science
Image credit: Neil Turner, CC BY-SA licence
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