Willy Aspinall

1. Introduction Many societally important issues entail substantial scientific uncertainty and their characterisation and numerical treatment for hazard or risk assessment can be challenging. It can also be fraught and compromised by limiting assumptions. Some examples of this are as follows: emergent or species-jumping zoonoses, or other nascent public health threats; industrial accidents; natural hazards, such as floods, earthquakes or volcanic eruptions; and climate change.

Significance Future sea level rise (SLR) poses serious threats to the viability of coastal communities, but continues to be challenging to project using deterministic modeling approaches. Nonetheless, adaptation strategies urgently require quantification of future SLR uncertainties, particularly upper-end estimates. Structured expert judgement (SEJ) has proved a valuable approach for similar problems.

Significance Future sea level rise (SLR) poses serious threats to the viability of coastal communities, but continues to be challenging to project using deterministic modeling approaches. Nonetheless, adaptation strategies urgently require quantification of future SLR uncertainties, particularly upper-end estimates. Structured expert judgement (SEJ) has proved a valuable approach for similar problems.