Managing safety under uncertainty: Integrating organisational resilience and risk management in the explosive remnants of war (ERW) context

Explosive remnants of war (ERW) constitute a persistent and evolving safety challenge, threatening human life, the environment, and critical activities long after hostilities have ceased. Despite increasing recognition that ERW risks may intensify over time due to munition degradation, environmental change, and expanding human activity, risk management practices continue to rely largely on conventional, probability-based risk assessment. In ERW contexts, however, weak prior knowledge, deep uncertainty, and complex socio-technical interactions limit the practical value of probabilistic approaches and may foster a false sense of control. This paper argues that organisational resilience (OR) provides a necessary complement to conventional risk management in high-hazard domains characterised by irreducible uncertainty. Drawing on an uncertainty-centred conception of risk and a capability-based framework of organisational resilience, the study examines how anticipation, coping, and adaptation shape ERW risk management across strategic, operational, and tactical levels. The analysis is informed by a qualitative case study from the Norwegian defence sector, based on interviews, document analysis, and practitioner experience. The findings show that ERW risk management challenges are not solely technical, but reflect limitations in organisational capabilities to anticipate emerging threats, cope with disruptions when they occur, and learn and adapt over time. By explicitly integrating resilience and risk perspectives, the paper demonstrates how safety performance can be strengthened when probabilistic risk assessment is insufficient. The study contributes to safety science by providing a coherent framework for analysing and improving safety management in ERW contexts and other complex, high-uncertainty risk environments. • Explosive remnants of war pose long-term safety risks under deep uncertainty • Probabilistic risk assessment is limited in ERW contexts with weak prior knowledge • Organizational resilience complements risk management under uncertainty • Anticipation, coping, and adaptation shape ERW safety outcomes • Qualitative methods reveal how ERW risks are managed in practice