Risk-Based Decision-Making in Water Resources IX

United Engineering Trustees, Inc., New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Haimes 0091627 The proposed ninth Engineering Foundation Conference on risk-based decision-making represents the natural growth of the field and the culmination of the theory, methodology, and applications in risk assessment and management of water resources and natural and man-made hazards. The most striking observations is that the objection and goals set forth for the first conference in September 1980 in Asilomar, California, and the issues raised in the preface of the 1980 proceedings are as relevant and as timely today as they were then. Our past conferences continued to reinforce the Socratic culture that has evolved over the last decade-and-a-half in these meetings. Although some of the papers covered topics presented previously, the discussions were more substantive and in greater depth. Methodologies were more closely related to theory, and at the same time the relevance of their applications to emerging natural and man-made hazards became stronger and more convincing. Such topics as uncertainties in data, models, and forecasts and their influence oin risk analysis have, in some sense, an eternal life of their own; yet, the level of discussion epitomized the growth and maturity in the field. The eighth (last) Engineering Foundation Conference on Risk-Based Decision-Making, held October 12-17, 1997 in Santa Barbara, California, augmented the technical discussion with policy issues and the implications of recent legislation initiatives in risk assessment. This conference attempted to address the connectedness among emerging trends and ideas as the management of our environment, physical infrastructure, response to possible climate change, the desire to embrace the concept of sustainable development in its broader sense, and the explosion of communications opportunities and their impact on informed decision making.