Quantitative Risk Assessment Paper

Terrorism has been around for a long time, but with the attacks of September 11, 2001, it was brought to the forefront of the world. Performing risk management for terrorism is different than other man-made or natural disasters. This paper will look at how feasible it is to assess the risks of terrorist attacks. First we must look at what risk management is. Risk management is used to ensure that the appropriate measures are taken to ensure the protection of people, the environment and important assets. Events that could cause harm are either man-made or natural. One thing to be done is a Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) which is a tool that can help with measures to help avoid the instances of hazards/threats or if unavoidable, reduces
When looking at the impact of financial and social losses, a probabilistic risk assessment would be done. Probabilistic risk assessments have evolved over the last two decades with the large scale events that have occurred. An important step is to acknowledge that in order to describe a terrorist risk, we must take into account both the uncertainties and consequences. For the risk of terrorism, it is fairly easy to predict the consequences of an attack. The problem is narrowing down and accurately predicting the time and type of attack. A pivotal step in coming up with the best strategies to manage risks of terrorism is to achieve a better understanding of the way people perceive the hazard of terrorism (Lee et al, 2010). For many decades, mitigation has
Emergency Managers need to integrate advances in risk management into decision-making, and doing this has already affected outcomes of several national elections (Michel-Kerjan, 2015). The successful managing of Hurricane Sandy helped Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election. In an example of how not taking the risk management seriously, the 2004 Spanish elections were lost by the government after it dealt poorly with the Madrid terrorist attacks in March of that year. To continue any successful risk management towards terrorist attacks, there are six stages that should be adhered to: (1) Don’t consider risks you are familiar with. Experts in one type of risk tend to overlook the importance of other factors. (2) Assess quality and quantity. Computer models can perform advanced quantitative analysis, but emotions and perceptions still influence decision-making. Find a balance and acknowledge uncertainty. (3) Don’t approach risks in one-sided. Look at all of their interdependencies. Monitor hazard trends that can reinforce each other. (4) Think beyond tomorrow. Short-term thinking is natural for politicians with an eye on the next election or business leaders concerned with next quarter’s results. Risks don’t materialize overnight. Look at evolving trends over the past ten years and expected ones for the next ten. (5) Risk analysis benefits at least every year. Bring specialists together