Uncertainty Analysis and Risk Assessment

This chapter presents an overview of the main concepts and methods that are used in the field of risk and uncertainty analysis. We will explore different definitions of the concept of risk and its relationship with the concepts of uncertainty, probability and hazard. Thereafter, we discuss deterministic and probabilistic methods for risk quantification and illustrate various approaches for presentation of the results of a risk analysis. The chapter also outlines the process for uncertainty analysis, which comprises identifying the sources of uncertainty, quantifying the uncertainties of different components, propagating the different uncertainties to obtain an overall measure of uncertainty and finally performing sensitivity and uncertainty analyses, in order to identify factors that have the highest contribution to the overall uncertainty.