 As a quick reminder, the concept of risk is based on objectives that are specified. Actions are planned. Then they are executed. Any deviation from the execution of the action plan is defined as an effect. The qualitative viewpoint considers that all effects have a cause, and that the causal relationship is deterministic. For this reason, it is also called the deterministic viewpoint. As far as safety is concerned, the objective is the preservation of health. People perceive causes that may hinder the achievement of this objective in a negative way. The generic term hazard as circumstances is used to refer to these causes. Effects are called accidents. And consequences on health are called injuries, including death as a fatal injury. Consider the displayed situation. A person is in a garage where a box is hung. That is the box is suspended above the ground. Is this a risky situation? Yes it is. So let's put our safety manager hat and study the situation and see how risks could be controlled. This raises a question, how to deal with the situation? Then how can this activity be formalized as a risk management process reusable to handle other risky situations? To be treated, that is, avoided or controlled to prevent accidents, existing hazardous situations, their effects and their consequences have to be known. The risk identification step aims at being familiar with the potential risks. Formally ISO defines identification as the process of finding, recognizing and describing risks, then the nature of identified risks is studied and used to ascertain the significance of the identified risks. This is done by the risk analysis step. For instance, if a suspended cardboard box contains a duvet, this identified risk is considered as negligible. ISO defines risk analysis as a process to comprehend the nature of risk and to determine the level of risk. We will probably consider that the hung cardboard box containing a duvet brings about a risk which needs no treatment. This decision is made during the step called a risk evaluation. ISO defines risk evaluation as a process of comparing the results of risk analysis with risk criteria to determine whether the risk and or its magnitude is acceptable or tolerable. It means that risk evaluation assists in decision making based on the outcome of risk analysis about which risks can need treatment to prioritize treatment implementation. If the hung box is heavy, the wire can be reinforced. This proposal is made during the risk treatment phase. The proposed risk control that is the wire reinforcement aims at avoiding this risk. ISO defines risk treatment as a process to modify risk. This video will mainly concern the identification step. If we adopt the qualitative approach, risk identification is the fundamental step of the risk management process. The risk identification step aims at drawing up a complete list of the potential risks. The ISO definition stipulates two activities, first, finding or recognizing risks. Second, describing the risks. The associated textbook suggests methods to implement the first activity. For the second activity that is describing risk, we will use a model now introduced. To present a first risk identification model, reconsider the following circumstances. A person is in a garage where a box is hung on the ceiling. Why are these circumstances risky? Because of the box. This box is the source of the risk. We will call the box an actor. Why is the box risky? Because the box is hung, it's suspended above the ground. The risk comes from this property. If the box is put on the floor, there is no risk. Why is such a property risky? Being hung, the box may fall down and injure people. A lot of things may fall down. Are they also hazardous? Yes. For instance, when an aircraft is flying, a crash may occur. In such a situation, the actor is the aircraft. Is flying is a hazardous property. The hazardous property of the aircraft and the property of the box are different. However, they assign to these two actors a common hazardous phenomenon, potential energy. Potential energy is a specific hazardous phenomenon. Any object which possesses potential energy is possibly dangerous. To summarize the first part of the identification model, three features were introduced. The first feature is called an actor. The box is an actor. The actor has a hazardous property. For instance, the box is hung. This property assigns a hazardous phenomenon to this actor. For instance, because it is hung, the box has potential energy. Why is such a circumstance qualified as hazardous? A person can be injured or killed if the box falls on them. The sentence means that we have an implicit objective to preserve health of people. As previously mentioned, the definition of risk requires the specification of objectives. So the objectives form another feature. What circumstances may lead to an accident? First of all, a person might be present in the garage. It is a hazardous situation. If nobody goes into the garage, there is no risk. But the person in the garage is not necessarily injured. The box may remain hung. When can an accident occur? An accident may occur if the wire breaks. This event is called an hazardous event. This is a hazardous event which triggers an actor's hazardous property. Actually, the wire breaking activates the negative effect of the box's property that is the box is hung. Does a broken wire necessarily lead to an accident? If a person is in the garage, the wire breaking may cause a shock and may injure the person. The shock is an example of harmful event and injuries or harms. The person affected by the identified risk is called a target. Now the introduced risk identification model can be summarized. The box is hung. This property assigns potential energy to the box. Our objective is the preservation of people's health. If a person enters the garage, he or she is in a hazardous situation. If the wire breaks, a shock may occur. This shock may lead to injuries. We have modelled the risk that we identified. This example uses a generic model. Let us reintroduce its features. The box is an actor. The box is hung specifies a hazardous property. This hazardous property assigns a hazardous phenomenon to the actor. In this example the phenomenon is the actor's potential energy. The person is a target. Being in the garage the person is in a hazardous situation. Indeed, our objective is to preserve heath. The breaking of the wire constitutes a hazardous event. The shock is a harmful event. It leads to harms. Consider the following circumstances. The top of the mountain is covered with snow and a chalet is built in the valley. We are the owner of the chalet. Our objective is to preserve our asset, that is our chalet, in good condition. Consequently the target is the chalet and the objective is to preserve its integrity. The hazard comes from the mass of snow. The snow is the actor. The snow is at the top of the mountain. It is a hazardous property of the snow. Indeed, the snow in the valley would never damage the chalet. The associated phenomenon is the potential energy. An avalanche is a hazardous event. If the chalet is located in an avalanche corridor, its situation is hazardous. If the snow crashes into the house then the crash is a harmful event. The harm is the destruction of the chalet. The risk identification activity consists in producing such models, that is in discovering the values of the identification model for all potential risks of the examined circumstances. So, a specific risk model is an instantiation of the generic identification model. To preserve safety, identified risks have to be controlled. The risk controls are suggested in the risk treatment step. The qualitative approach defines safety in two ways corresponding to two kinds of treatment. First, safety is defined as the absence of hazards. The risk treatment consists in eliminating identified hazards. For a given identified risk, we can avoid the associated hazardous property. For instance, considering the avalanche hazard, a possible risk control is to deliberately trigger small avalanches to limit the mass of snow at the top of the mountain. We may also avoid the hazardous situation. For instance, a regulation may forbid the construction of chalets in an avalanche corridor. The second possible definition for safety is the absence of accidents. The previous risk controls are still valid. Others can be added. The associated risk treatments will avoid the causal relationships as presented in the figure. For instance, barriers are built on mountain sides to stop the progression of an avalanche. This avoids the occurrence of the harmful events. This introduction to risk treatment highlights the importance of the risk identification model. Indeed, the proposed risk controls aim to avoid the occurrence of the model features, such as a hazardous property, or the propagation of a causal relationship. Features and causal relationships are those made explicit in the identification model. This video provided a first risk identification model. Indeed, an identification model provides one perspective on risk. However, risk is a complex concept. So various perspectives exist, even if the qualitative approach is the only viewpoint considered in this module. Each model allows a set of risks to be expressed, that is, to be identified. But maybe, not all the risks. This incompleteness of the list is not due to a drawback of the identification model used but to the scope of each model. The following lectures will highlight the scope of the introduced models. Once you have selected an identification model, you will have to apply it. If no instructions for use are provided to engineers, the effectiveness of the identification phase will strongly depend on the skill and the background of these engineers. The list of identified risks will probably be incomplete and, even if it is completed, no assurance of this completeness can be given. Identification is the first step of the risk management process. When the qualitative approach is considered, identification is the most important activity. The other steps are developed in the textbook associated with this video, analysis, evaluation and treatment. Additional models will be studied during the following lessons. The textbook accompanying this lesson and the next lessons will also suggest methods to assist engineers when identifying risks.