Addressing path dependencies in decision-making processes for operationalizing compound climate-risk management

The need for a compound risk governance system and management practice is argued in this paper. We find that, historically, risk management strategies have been developed for single hazards and are often subject to path dependency. It is thus difficult to adapt them to a situation that has compound risks. The lack of attention to compound risks in current risk management practices often leads to potential side effects—positive or negative—on other risks and can also result in related management strategies being overlooked. This can ultimately cause barriers to larger transformational adaptation efforts and lead to the intensification of existing societal inequalities or to the creation of new ones. To alert policy- and decision-makers to the need to move toward compound-risk management strategies, we argue that risk management must explicitly highlight various elements of path dependencies, the positive and negative side effects of single-hazard risk management, the appearance of new social inequalities, and the intensification of existing ones.