The future of risk assessment

Risk assessment must evolve for addressing the existing and future challenges, and considering the new systems and innovations that have already arrived in our lives and that are coming ahead. In this paper, I swing on the rapid changes and innovations that the World that we live in is experiencing, and analyze them with respect to the challenges that these pose to the field of risk assessment. Digitalization brings opportunities but with it comes also the complexity of cyber-phyiscal systems. Climate change and extreme natural events are increasingly threatening our infrastructures; terrorist and malevolent threats are posing severe concerns for the security of our systems and lives. These sources of hazard are extremely uncertain and, thus, difficult to describe and model quantitatively. Some research and development directions that are emerging are presented and discussed, also considering the ever increasing computational capabilities and data availability. These include the use of simulation for accident scenario identification and exploration, the extension of risk assessment into the framework of resilience and business continuity, the reliance on data for dynamic and condition monitoring-based risk assessment, the safety and security assessment of cyber-physical systems. The paper is not a research work and not exactly a review or a state of the art work, but rather it offers a lookout on risk assessment, open to consideration and discussion, as it cannot pretend to give an absolute point of view nor to be complete in the issues addressed (and the related literature referenced to).