Risk perception

The term ‘risk’ is a term used quite often and in day to day life. Risk is defined and represented in different ways based on the associated activity and its nature. Risk consists of a combination of the probability of a perceived threat or opportunity occurring and the magnitude of its impact on objectives.

In process and manufacturing industries (not exclusive), most commonly, risk is assessed, analysed and expressed in terms of individual risk and societal risk. The risk estimation and analysis is to ensure that the risk an industrial activity is not resulting in intolerable levels.

Risk is perceived in terms of the severity from an event and its frequency. The fact to be noted is that those events with minimal severity but frequent posses similar risk to those events with maximum severity but not that frequent. The everyday activities like smoking (including passive) and driving (including being on road or on a means of transport) also could result in fatality and keep public at higher risk. These events may not be often classified as severe but happen quite frequently.

Then there are near-to-known or unknown treats like dust explosions and exposure to asbestos. The risk from such activities is seldom assessed due to lack of knowledge on the potential consequence. This raises the question on perceiving risk from potential major incidents. Even though the severity is estimated and well understood, it is often neglected considering as not likely.

An example: Catastrophic failure of a hazardous material storage tank could result in multiple fatalities and the recorded failure frequency is one in a million years (1 x 10-6 /yr). There are more than a million tanks which could result in similar catastrophe; which means, there will be a catastrophic failure of tank every year. The tank could be the tank on your way to work, which supply the fuel to the garage from where you re-fill, the site where you or dear one works, the near to school or hospital. And this is happening, yes every year there is a major incident associated with storage tanks.