Services / Water Resources Planning and Management
Risk Analysis
Good decisions and research must address uncertainty and variability. This is true, for example, when planning for a reliable water supply, when analyzing environmental impacts or when assessing health consequences. Quantitative evaluation of the degree and impact of uncertainty and variability is often referred to as risk analysis. Hydrosphere has the experience and tools to provide quantitative risk analysis in support of a broad spectrum of scientific and engineering investigations.
Traditionally, water resources planning has been based on the concept of "firm" or "safe" yield. With increased sophistication, and as a result of recent droughts, water supply managers have come to understand that it is impossible to construct and operate a system that will guarantee a minimum "safe" yield. Increasingly, water managers are seeking to express the reliability of their systems in quantitative terms, much as has been done in the field of flood management for decades. Hydrosphere has developed techniques and tools that allow these quantitative evaluations of reliability to be made cost-effectively using water supply agencies' own models and data sets.
Health and environmental professionals have long recognized uncertainty and variability when assessing the consequences of planned or past activities or events. Hydrosphere has the tools, techniques and experience to provide quantitative risk assessment in support of environmental and health assessments. We have considerable experience working with medical professionals to translate conceptual exposure, dose and risk models into quantitative mathematical models.
- Our risk analysis services include:
- Data collection and analysis
- Parametric and non-parametric statistical analysis
- Time series analysis
- Elicitation of quantitative expressions of state of knowledge from experts
- Definition and sampling of probability distributions
- Monte Carlo techniques