How do you document conclusions and recommendations?
Conclusions and recommendations should be documented as a series of short statements. You can either list them under two headings, or make a conclusion and follow it up with a suitable recommendation. Remember, however, that if a particular conclusion states that there is no hazard problem in a particular area, then you may not need a recommendation to deal with it.
Examples of conclusions and recommendations
As an example of conclusions and recommendations, I will take a risk assessment relating to the hazard of flood in a given town and surrounding area.
Conclusion 1 - This town is subject to moderate flooding with an annual exceedance probability of 1/20, and major flooding with an annual exceedance probability of 1/60. Moderate floods may cause some minor damage and inconvenience and cut a number of minor roads, major floods will cause considerable damage to public and private property, and may put human life at risk.
Recommendation 1 - It is necessary to review the ways in which flood is managed in this town and surrounding areas, including prevention/mitigation and preparedness. This management should take into account flood events above and including the moderate flood level.
Conclusion 2 - Moderate flooding may cause some harm to livestock and portable pumps in the area surrounding the town.
Recommendation 2 - It is necessary to review the appropriateness of the flood warning system for farmers in the surrounding area. The flood warnings should provide farmers with sufficient information to move livestock and pumps to higher ground.
Conclusion 3 - Major floods will damage local roads and bridges.
Recommendation 3 - The roads and transport agency should assess the integrity of roads and bridges within the areas of major flooding, and perform a cost/benefit/risk analysis on the protection and strengthening options.
Conclusion 4 - Major floods will inundate approximately 35 private structures to various levels. Some more recent structures may be totally destroyed.
Recommendation 4 - Local government should review its land use plan and determine the types of structures that should be allowed within the area likely to be inundated by a major flood.
Conclusion 5 - Major floods will require the evacuation of 30 houses in the flood plain, and of other houses that will be isolated.
Recommendation 5 - It is necessary to develop evacuation plans for these houses including at least means of warning, transport, reception areas, and feeding.
In addition to drawing your conclusions and making appropriate recommendations statements, you can also document how your recommendations will be implemented, by whom, when etc. in the form of a table or matrix. The Emergency Risk Management Applications Guide (EMA, 2000b, Annex A) provides an example of one way that you might document this information.
Your recommendations should contain the following information and form the basis of identifying how you will implement your risk treatment options:
- Responsibilities for implementing and action required within each option;
- Schedules/ timeframes for implementation and actions;
- Expected outcomes of each treatment option;
- Budgeting/ financial information;
- Resource requirements;
- Performance management information, including performance measures; and
- Review, reporting and monitoring process that will be used to review the implementation and success of each option.