Abstract:
Uncertainties and risks are identifiably inherent in construction work. They complicate the decision-making process particularly if decisions are required to be taken at an early stage in the project, when information available is minimal. This is certainly the case in the construction of landslide/slope retaining systems such as soldier pile walls, micropile walls, soil nail walls where, in the absence of all the information, retaining systems are often selected without informed decisions about potential and damaging risks. For example, there is a lack of a comprehensive structured and explicit approach that considers risks during the design or the construction of retaining systems. There are also no suitable models or tools that enable efficient and effective risk management for this purpose. There are some available approaches for the risk assessment of these structures, but they require to be reviewed again to come up with a more comprehensive guideline. The knowledge on risks is not shared and stays in the minds of geotechnical experts. Even when such knowledge is available within construction companies, it is often not structured or available in ready-to-use format. All of this may cause technical problems and hence considerable additional costs. There is therefore a need for improved and informed decisions whereby the effects of risks on the choice and construction of pile foundations are taken into considerations. In general, there are two types of project risk analysis that can be carried out, qualitative and quantitative. Each of these approaches has its advantages and disadvantages. For example, the qualitative approach has the advantage that not a great deal of information is required and that risks can be analyzed in a broad spectrum. The disadvantage however is that no in-depth analysis of the risks can be carried out and hence no detailed information can be found on the exact consequences of the events underlying the risks. Quantitative risk analysis methods on the other hand offer the opportunity to achieve a detailed view of the consequences of the events that might take place during construction. A disadvantage of this approach however is that it is not suitable to be used for assessment of risk in a broader sense. It has shown in literature that both methods are required in order to make informed judgments regarding risks of the various types of landslide/slop retaining systems. This study is a review paper reviewing all the available methods of qualitative and quantitative risk assessments to provide an insight for future improvements.