Abstract:

Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) is a young scientific discipline and is rapidly developing. New methods and techniques are produced, and the application areas cover now most industries and businesses. However, the discipline is faced with many challenges -- the quality of and the added value obtained by conducting QRAs, are still questioned. Are the trends that we experience in the field going in the right directions meeting these challenges? In this paper we discuss this issue. We characterise some of the main trends and point at areas which should be given increased attention. The discussion covers topics related to the scientific basis of the risk assessments, uncertainty representations and handling, the causal chains and event modelling, and the use of decision criteria such as risk acceptance (tolerability) limits.
Received on June 06, 2008, revised on April 15, 2009
References: 45