Risk Assessment Methods - Collective Anticipation and The Dual Nature of Resilience

1. Risk Assessment Methods - Collective Anticipation and The Dual Nature of Resilience Kurt Petersen Henrik Tehler LUCRAM

2. Swedish Legislation • 2002 – and updated 2010 • Requiring Risk and Vulnerability Analysis • New Authority, Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency - MSB

3. Risk and vulnerability analysis in the Swedish crisis management system • Requirement for (almost) all public agencies, Act 2002 • Purpose • Provide basis for decisions concerning risk and vulnerability reduction • Scope • Identification of hazards, estimation of likelihood and consequences • Capability to respond to hazardous events/crises • Should constitute a ”system” • Vertical and horizontal integration

4. 21 Counties (2006 - 2010) Uncertainty (How frequent?) • (1) Do not consideruncertaintyexplicitly • (2) Verbal descriptionofuncertainty • Ex. ”It is unlikelythat event A willoccur” • (3) Qualitative ranking (5 classes) • Ex. • ”Extremelyunlikely” • ”Veryunlikely” • ”Unlikely” • ”Probable” • ”Verylikely”

5. Counties (2006 - 2010) Uncertainty (How frequent?) • (1) Do not consider uncertainty explicitly • (2) Verbal description • (3) Qualitative ranking (5 classes) • (4) Semi-quantitative ranking (5 classes) • Ex • ”Extremely unlikely – less then 1 time per 1000 years” • ”Very unlikely – 1 time per 100 to 1000 years” • ”Unlikely – 1 time per 10 to 100 years” • ”Probably – 1 time per 1 to 10 years” • ”Very likely – more then 1 time per year” • (5) Quantification • Ex: ”The event will occor 1 time in 50 years”

6. 21 Counties (2006 - 2010) Consequences for society? • (1) No explicit description of consequences • (2) Verbal description of consequences • Ex. ”The consequences will be very serious if event A occurs” • (3) Qualitative ranking (5 classes) • Ex. • ”Catastrophy” • ”Very serious” • ”Large” • ”Not serious” • ”Small”

7. Counties (2006 - 2010) Consequences for society? • (1) No explicit consequences • (2) Description • (3) Qualitative ranking (5 classes) • (4) Semi-quantitative ranking (5 classes) • Ex: • ”Catastrophy –Loss: >20 MSEK, Health: Some deaths” • ”Very large –Loss: 5-20 MSEK, Health: Few deaths” • ”Large – Loss: 1-5 MSEK, Health: Few seriously injured” • ”Not serious – Loss: 0,1-1 MSEK, Health: Few seriously injured” • ”Small – Loss: <0,1 MSEK, Health: inconvenience” • (5) Quantification • Ex: ”The consequences are 10 killed”

8. Risk - Resilience • Risk Assessment as a basis for improving Community Resilience

9. The concept of resilience • There are many definition of resilience. In the context of crisis management/disasters two common perspectives are: • The “bouncing back”-perspective (Reactive) • “the ability of the system to withstand a disruption within acceptable degradation parameters and to recover within acceptable losses and time.” (Haimes, 2011) • The “foresight”-perspective (Proactive) • “Resilience is a system capability to create foresight, to recognize, to anticipate, and to defend against the changing shape of risk before adverse consequences occur.” (Woods, 2006)

10. The concept of resilience • Focus in the present study: • How an aspect of proactive resilience can be measured. • How proactive and reactive resilience are connected. • To track the development of an aspect of proactive resilience in the Swedish crisis management system between 2006 and 2010.

11. Collective anticipation • Resilience (including proactive resilience) is a general concept that needs to be made more specific in order to allow for measurement. • Anticipation = “visualization of a future event or state” Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary (11th ed.). • In the present context this is often associated with the production of scenarios. • To stress that these scenarios are not produced by a single person, or a single organization, we use the term collective anticipation. • Example: • The Swedish system for risk and vulnerability assessment (RVA). • “All” actors on national, regional and local level have to perform RVA. • We focus on the regional level (21 County Adm. Boards)

12. The connection between proactive and reactive resilience, and anticipation Reactive resilience Proactive resilience Is an aspect of (Collective) Anticipation Contains assessments of Is an outcome of Risk and vulnerability assessment We focus on how potential scenarios are communicated in the documents produced by all county administrative boards in 2006, 2008 and 2010

13. So what does that mean? • It means that the county administrative boards use different ways of communicating likelihood (Uncommon Categorization), which obstructs collective anticipation in the present context. For example, when constructing the national overview of risks and vulnerabilities. • The potential for communicating order and magnitude concerning the likelihood of various scenarios has increased between 2006 and 2010. • However, since: • proactive resilience is only one aspect of resilience • and anticipation is only one aspect of proactive resilience • and the communication of likelihood is only one aspect of anticipation • and there are more aspects of likelihood has that could be relevant… • …it is difficult to say how the resilience of the Swedish system has developed.

14. So what does that mean? • Nevertheless: • The ability to anticipate is an important aspect of a resilient system, and we have shown a way of describing the output of anticipation that could be useful in an attempt to make the general term “resilience” measurable.

15. Conclusion • RSA has improved over the 10 year period • RSA is developing from verbal to quasi-quantitative approaches • RSA is developing on all administrative levels in Sweden