ABSTRACT
Sustainable decisions for maintenance and protection of important infrastructure require both the life-cycle assessment of performance, and the comparison between investments for safety and the benefits of keeping the safety level within acceptable margins. The balanced implementation of strategies to design and maintain facilities must consider the risk management as a tool to measure the economical effectiveness of alternatives, and to allocate limited resources according to the needs of the society. Information on risk is important in the development of criteria and planning for design, maintenance and operation of marine structures. The impact of cost/benefit ratios, epistemic uncertainties and the relative importance of contributing factors are weighted and used as a decision making tool for a risk-based planning of resources allocation for maintenance of infrastructures with different revenues/cost ratios.
