Public Policy and System-based Risk-informed Decision-making

摘要

While individual facility owners are concerned with the facility only, public officials have to consider large community system that comprises physical civil infrastructure systems as a component. When a hazard strikes, all systems are impacted and the overall safety and damage depends on the type of interdependency that exists among all interacting systems. Risk assessment needs to be made giving due importance to these interdependencies. Public policies have to be made without complete information or the capacity to process all the information that is available. The enacted public policy may not be optimal but tries to benefit all segments of a society in some way. It is a result of a process that cannot quantify all the risks. Qualitative analysis in conjunction with quantitative analysis is made to assess cost-benefit. Finally, political considerations many a time override the analyses based on data.