The Varied Nature of Risk and Considerations for the Water Industry: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

In many circumstances within the water industry, project managers act as the gatekeepers for new infrastructure and water projects by way of determining, or at least providing, an assessment of whether to proceed with the project. Their assessments, which are considerably based on risk, disproportionately assume a technical, rational approach. Psychological, sociological and cultural risk approaches provide a comprehensive guide into how risks are assessed, highlighting areas that are not considered by the traditional technical risk approach. This article provides a review of these approaches, and in so doing contends that existing risk assessments in the water industry ignore sociological and psychological contexts in situations, leading to an assessment that may not be reliable.