Question

What do we mean by the term societal risk? What type of diagram do we use to assess societal risk? Draw such a diagram making sure you have enough information to assess whether the risk is acceptable or not

Answer 1

Societal risk is the quantitative formulation for situations which have the potential to impact many people. It is a category of Third Party Risk( TPR) which is described under two categories:
1. Individual Risk

2. Societal Risk

Individual Risk is the risk to which a single individual is exposed. For eg, a person driving a car. However, if we talk about travelling in a plane, a single event like plane crash has the potential to harm group of individuals. This risk which poses a danger to many people is Societal Risk.

Societal Risk is represented as an FN Curve. This graph plots the expected annual frequency(F) of number of casualties( N) arising from hypothetical dangerous situations.

The Graph looks like this:

There are 2 parameters:

1. Tolerability Criterion which is the green line

2. FN Curve which is presented by blue line

Now in the graph where the FN curve exceeds the Tolerability criterion( Red area), This represents the increase in overall risk, as compared to previous established risk criterion( green line).