Food Risk Analysis

Abstract

The aim of flood risk analyses is to quantitatively assess the flood risk. In its broad sense, flood risk is defined as the probability of adverse consequences due to inundation. Flood risk analyses are typically dealing with extreme events and failure scenarios which have hardly been (or not at all) observed. Therefore, flood risk assessments are accompanied with considerable uncertainty. Today, it is not standard practice to explicitly analyse the uncertainty bounds of flood risk estimates. This paper discusses the value of uncertainty analysis for flood risk analysis. We argue in favour of uncertainty analyses in flood risk assessments, since uncertainty considerations (1) improve risk analyses, (2) help to confirm or falsify risk analyses, and (3) support decision-making.