Risk assessment and management in underground rock engineering—an overview

This paper attempts to provide an overview of risk assessment and management practice in underground rock engineering based on a review of the international literature and some personal experience. It is noted that the terminologies used in risk assessment and management studies may vary from country to country. Probabilistic risk analysis is probably the most widely-used approach to risk assessment in rock engineering and in geotechnical engineering more broadly. It is concluded that great potential exists to augment the existing probabilistic methods by the use of Bayesian networks and decision analysis techniques to allow reasoning under uncertainty and to update probabilities, material properties and analyses as further data become available throughout the various stages of a project. Examples are given of the use of these methods in underground excavation engineering in China and elsewhere, and opportunities for their further application are identified.