Responses to Terje Aven's Paper: On Some Recent Definitions and Analysis Frameworks for Risk, Vulnerability, and Resilience

The paper by Professor Aven(6) titled “On Some Recent Definitions and Analysis Frameworks for Risk, vulnerability, and Resilience” that appeared in the previous issue of Risk Analysis: An International Journal contains inaccurate statements and conclusions made on the papers by Haimes.(1,2) This paper is intended to correct inaccuracies and misconceptions in Aven’s paper. The purpose of the following detailed responses is to correct the inaccurate statements and conclusions; it does so by referring to specific quotations from Haimes(1,2) and by highlighting two mathematical maxims and the systems-based theory on which the two papers are grounded. The responses are organized in three parts: Part One provides the two basic mathematical maxims that were overlooked by Aven; Part Two provides three key definitions quoted directly from Haimes;(1) and Part Three provides responses to specific inaccurate statements in Aven’s paper, with references to the maxims or quotations from Parts One and Two.