Development of Semantic Risk Breakdown Structure to Support Risk Identification for Bridge Projects

Risk identification for bridge projects is a knowledge-based and labor-intensive task involving several procedures and stakeholders. Presently, risk information of bridge projects is unstructured and stored in different sources and formats, hindering knowledge sharing, reuse, and automation of the risk identification process. Consequently, there is a need to develop structured and formalized risk information for bridge projects to aid effective risk identification and automation of the risk management processes to ensure project success. This study proposes a semantic risk breakdown structure (SRBS) to support risk identification for bridge projects. SRBS is a searchable hierarchical risk breakdown structure (RBS) developed with python programming language based on a semantic modeling approach. The proposed SRBS for risk identification of bridge projects consists of a 4-level tree structure with 11 categories of risks and 116 potential risks associated with bridge projects. The contributions of this paper are threefold. Firstly, this study fills the gap in knowledge by presenting a formalized risk breakdown structure that could enhance the risk identification of bridge projects. Secondly, the proposed SRBS can assist in the creation of a risk database to support the automation of the risk identification process for bridge projects to reduce manual efforts. Lastly, the proposed SRBS can be used as a risk ontology that could aid the development of an artificial intelligence-based integrated risk management system for construction projects.