September 27, 2025

2025-09-27 08:30 AM 2025-09-27 04:30 PM Risk Informed Decision Making N.A. America/New_York

8:30 am – 4:30 pm
TCU Place, Gallery C

Instructional, Working Examples
In-person, English language only

Morning session  - What is RIDM?

The morning will summarise the findings of the working group to date including a walk through the concepts and the potential benefits to improving our practice.

• Definition of RIDM and a literature review of a few key documents have been published by the working group. These will be presented and debated.
• Summary of the findings of the Niagara 2024 workshop.
• Principles of RIDM come from shared experience of all hazardous industries (Nuclear, Petrochem, aviation, etc.). There is therefore a huge body of experience to draw from. Superficial differences exist but for the application of RIDM they are the surface - beneath that surface the process of managing the hazard with a RIDM framework is the same.
• RIDM concepts discussed will be focused on tailings dams but the principles, lessons learned and the approach are equally applicable to water dams.
• Structures that are an ongoing hazard to society and the environment have to be managed to gain the benefits and reduce the risks and consequences.
• Introduction to supporting literature from mining and water dams as well as other hazardous industrious.

Afternoon session - Scenarios

The afternoon will consist of groups working through a number of scenarios.

The scenarios will demonstrate various aspects of RIDM and use the scenarios to explore the method and illustrate through example the benefits and identify weaknesses that RIDM may address through effective application.

• Several breakout sessions of groups of professionals.
• Opportunity to work through several scenarios using RIDM.
• Complex decision making will be explored: a large number of factors, more than one decision maker, multiple attributes that may conflict and uncertainty.
• The challenges of achieving understanding and agreement between a wide variety of backgrounds. 
  • Owners, operators, engineers, regulators, external stakeholders etc..
• Decision making will be discussed and the impacts on the various stakeholders.

Presenters

Alistair James (Newfields)
Chaitan Sandhu (Tetra Tech)

 

Workshops provided in conjunction with the 2025 CDA Conference in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Sept 28-Oct 1, 2025)

 

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