Managing vulnerability and risk for sustainability

The risks to a system must necessarily be well managed for it to be sustain able. In this paper risk, opportunity and vulnerability are clearly disting uished. Managing them for sustainable systems is a set of 'wicked' problems with interlocking issues and constraints which can only be solved through a social process. This process can also identify new opportunities to add v alue. There is a strong need to integrate our understanding and ability to manage 'hard' and 'soft' systems and this may be done through a way of syst ems thinking about processes introduced recently (Blockley and Godfrey, 200 0). The methodology enables appropriate attributes of processes to be chose n and defined so that evidence can be collected from the past, present and future to steer a 'wicked' process to success. This includes a proper consi deration of hazards, risks and vulnerabilities and the incorporation of the basic ethical values of sustainability. An example of a (partial) set of p rocesses for sustaining a water supply is given based on an actual case his tory.