BGC Engineering Inc. has developed a number of methodologies to assist management to quantify risk, help management to define acceptable limits, and if risks are found to be unacceptably high, to reduce the likelihood of occurrence or the consequences. BGC provides a complete range of Risk Management Services to the mining, transportation, oil & gas, forestry, and development industries. Risk Management techniques are used to assist with the engineering of:

Route Selection and Design for Linear Facilities
Site Selection and Characterization
Mine Tailings Dam and Open Pit Design
Geotechnical and Environmental Liability Assessment
Operational and Maintenance Planning
Emergency Preparedness Planning
Environmental Remediation
Landslide Hazard and Risk Assessments
Timber Harvesting and Road Layout

BGC's broad-based, common-sense approach conforms to national and international guidelines for risk management, including CSA Q-850 and APEG, BC (2006, 2008). Company specific risk programs have been developed for some of Canada's largest mining, railway and pipeline companies and have been applied on projects throughout the world. BGC staff have extensively published [Tidal to add link to publication list] on various aspects of risk assessments and have introduced quantitative landslide and flood risk assessment methodologies to municipal and provincial governments in British Columbia.

BGC's risk management decision process includes:

Project Initiation - Don't know where to begin?

BGC can work with you to identify how risk management can provide cost saving opportunities for your project. BGC can help establish a risk management team, crystallize the study objectives and identify resource requirements suitable for your specific project needs.

Hazard Identification - Do you have natural hazards that you need help with?

BGC will help you to identify and characterize both natural and man-made geomorphic and engineering hazards using risk scenarios. BGC has developed a methodology that assigns probabilities to the likelihood of occurrences of natural hazards. BGC is using absolute and relative dating methods such as air photograph or satellite imagery chronosequential interpretation, eye witness accounts, historic searches, dendrochronology (tree ring science), tephrochronology (dating of volcanic ashes), and radiometric dating as well as sedimentary stratigraphy, soil development, lichenometry and weathering rind development in determining the age and frequency of geohazards.

Depending on the nature and location of your project, hazards may include geological processes such as tsunamis, volcanic eruption, fault rupture, landslides, flooding, riverbank erosion and channel scour. They may also include the potential for loss of critical services like power or water, excessive settlements of foundations, project construction delays, operational error, or third-party impacts. BGC’s staff has diverse training and can relate geohazard consequences also to environmental assets such as aquatic and terrestrial habitats.

Risk Assessment - What is your tolerance for risk?

BGC will help you to fit the encountered geohazards into an existing framework or aid in developing a risk tolerance system that will fit your specific application. BGC will identify areas where loss exposure may be unacceptably high, marginally acceptable, or acceptable. This process is referred to as 'risk evaluation.'

Risk Management - Have scenarios been identified where your loss exposure is too high?

BGC can help identify and evaluate feasible risk control options. These may include route or facility location planning, monitoring programs, hydrometeorological warning systems, changes to operational plans, employee training, slope stabilization, or re-location of valuable assets. The effectiveness of the options will be evaluated through reliability analyses and cost-benefit analysis.

Action / Monitoring - Do you have some mitigation planned?

BGC can work with you to implement the chosen risk control measures and monitor the results.

For additional information download recent publications by BGC specialists in Risk Management or, visit our associates (Oboni Associates Ltd) Risk Learning Center. www.riskope.com