Limitations On Geotechnical Risk Management: Designing For Resilience

The imprecisions inherent and unavoidable in probabilistically-based risk analysis and management are addressed and shown to be a significant limitation on reliable infrastructure design against the loads resulting from hazard events. The nature of hazard events is outlined and the concept of resilience defined in the context of poorly-quantified and unknown hazards. It is suggested that resilience might be improved by purposefully designing infrastructure to match complex system attributes such as decentralisation, heterogeneity and redundancy. The use of event and effects scenarios in choice of a design event in geotechnical engineering is outlined, and the implications of this strategy explored.