Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the risk management is better approached from an understanding of risks as wicked problems. Risk conundrums taken seriously can be seen as invitations for transformative risk management, whereby the profound shifts initiated to address them fundamentally eventually create more adaptive, resilient patterns of living in a hazardous world. Nick Pidgeon and colleagues reports the hydraulic fracking involves similarly complex risk conundrums. The book addresses the properties of risk conundrums and the analytical challenges. It explores in depth three other profound challenges affecting the possibilities for risk management – socio-ecological complexity, interrelationships across temporal and spatial scales of risk, and diversities in stakeholder perceptions and values. The book emphasizes the deep societal and economic roots of vulnerability. It also explores the fundamental issues involved in developing effective governance structures for addressing risk conundrums.