Comparing and integrating the NUSAP notational scheme with an uncertainty based risk perspective

Abstract

Efforts to develop approaches to represent uncertainty in risk assessments follow both quantitative and semi-quantitative lines, where semi-quantitative is here to be understood as quantitative representation supplemented with qualitative assessments of aspects not sufficiently and appropriately captured by the produced numbers. The latter type of approach can be referred to as extended quantitative risk assessment and has parallels with the so-called NUSAP notational scheme of uncertainty and quality in science for policy. In the present paper we analyse the parallels that exist between NUSAP and a general description of risk as conceptualised in the recently published Society for Risk Analysis glossary. In addition to obtaining insights at the fundamental level into different approaches to describe risk, an objective is to explore whether aspects from the NUSAP notational scheme can be used within the context of and to improve current methods for extended quantitative risk assessment consistent with the general description of risk. We conclude that there are strong parallels between the two approaches and that particularly the use of visualisation tools in NUSAP can advantageously be utilised in extended quantitative risk assessments. A short example from the oil and gas industry is used to illustrate how this can be done.