Probabilistic Foundations of Nuclear Risk Assessment

Risk analysis is a fundamental task of intelligence analysts and engineers, as it assesses the possibility of some threat to the safety and security of a country, of its critical infrastructures and of its people. Unfortunately though, when risk analysis is performed with a qualitative approach, it is often ambiguous and vague. Therefore, a more structured and quantitative method is required in order to assess the risk in a way that it is immediately understandable and actionable for decision and policy makers. This is particularly true for nuclear risk, as it is one of the major threats to the security and safety of the national community. For these reasons, in this study a probabilistic framework for nuclear risk assessment is presented, adopting techniques and methods from both descriptive and inferential statistics.