Above Ground Risk

What is ‘Above Ground Risk’

Non-quantifiable risks that can adversely affect a project or investment. Above ground risk is generally used in the energy industry to refer to non-technical risks such as environmental issues and the regulatory climate. More broadly, above ground risk refers to a wide range of somewhat nebulous risks such as political risk, corporate risk, security and corporate governance whose impact is difficult to quantify, but could be significant should one or more of these risks become a real threat.

Explaining ‘Above Ground Risk’

Above grounds risks may also include a number of risks that are less acknowledged such as corruption, bribery and conflicts of interest. The degree of above ground risk differs from one nation to the next. Countries with pro-business policies, strong governance and efficient legal systems may have a lower degree of above ground risk than those nations that do not possess these attributes.

Further Reading

  • Risk assessment and prevention of surface subsidence in deep multiple coal seam mining under dense above-ground buildings: Case study – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • “Growing” communities with urban agriculture: Generating value above and below ground – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • Scheffer index as preferred method to define decay risk zones for above ground wood in building codes – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • Estimation of above ground forest biomass from airborne discrete return laser scanner data using canopy-based quantile estimators – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • Buried above ground: A university-based study of risk/protective factors for suicidality among sexual minority youth in Canada – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
  • Financial risk tolerance and additional factors that affect risk taking in everyday money matters – link.springer.com [PDF]
  • Climate change, aboveground-belowground interactions, and species' range shifts – www.annualreviews.org [PDF]
  • A class of distortion operators for pricing financial and insurance risks – www.jstor.org [PDF]
  • Estimating above-ground biomass in young forests with airborne laser scanning – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]