Magnum GSIGround risk assessment
A structured assessment of ground-related risk and what it means for your project: geohazards, contamination and geotechnical constraints, from qualitative screening through to quantified cost and programme exposure, in a risk register that stays useful through design and construction.
Why appoint us
Every rating has a basis and a confidence
Ground risk is usually managed as a line in a project risk register that says "unknown ground conditions". That is not a risk, it is an absence of assessment. A proper assessment names the hazards, says how likely and how costly each is, states how confident the data allows us to be, and sets out what reduces it.
Mining legacy, dissolution, shrinkable clay, compressible ground, slope instability, made ground, river and surface water flooding, radon, ground gas and aggressive ground, plus source protection zones. The same framework that drives GeoScreen™, applied by an engineer to your site and scheme.
A screening-level assessment at feasibility, a full register and quantified exposure at design. The effort matches the decision in front of you.
Risks are revisited as investigation and design progress, rather than assessed once and filed.
What we provide
From screening to quantified exposure
Geohazard screening and rating
The eleven-hazard framework behind GeoScreen™, applied by an engineer to a specific site and scheme with site-specific data, so that every rating has a stated basis and a stated confidence.
Ground risk registers
Risks identified, assessed for likelihood and consequence, and given an owner, a mitigation and a residual rating, in a format that drops into the project's own risk register and is reviewed at each gateway.
Quantified assessment
Where the decision justifies it, semi-quantitative and probabilistic assessment of cost and programme exposure, abnormal cost allowances and sensitivity to the main unknowns.
Specific hazard studies
Coal Mining Risk Assessments for sites in a Development High Risk Area, slope stability assessment, dissolution and karst assessment, ground gas and contamination risk assessment, and coordination of specialist assessments such as unexploded ordnance.
Mitigation and investigation strategy
The investigation, monitoring, design measures or further study that reduce each risk to an acceptable level, in the order that gives the most information for the least cost.
Reporting for the reader
Written for the design team, the planning authority or the funder as the case requires, separating what is recorded from what is inferred.
How it works
Screen, assess, register, review
- Screen. A GeoScreen™ Tier 1 report or an authored desk study establishes the hazards present and the data confidence.
- Assess. Each hazard rated for likelihood and consequence against the proposed scheme, with cost and programme exposure where the decision needs it.
- Register. Owners, mitigations and residual ratings agreed with the project team and merged into the project risk register.
- Review. Updated at each gateway as investigation results and design decisions arrive.
Who it is for
Anyone carrying the cost of the ground
Developers and their design teams; infrastructure owners and operators; contractors pricing and planning ground works; planning authorities and their advisers; and funders and insurers who need ground risk expressed in terms of cost and likelihood.
We work across England, Wales and Scotland.
Tier 1 rates all eleven hazards for your site with the basis and confidence for each. The ground risk assessment builds on it rather than starting again.
See a sample report →Standards
What the work is carried out to
BS 5930:2015+A1:2020; BS EN 1997-1 and 1997-2 (Eurocode 7); ICE guidance on managing geotechnical risk; the Land Contamination Risk Management guidance; BS 8485:2015+A1:2019 and CIRIA C665 for ground gas; BR 211:2023 for radon; Mining Remediation Authority guidance on coal mining risk assessment; and national planning policy (NPPF, Planning Policy Wales, NPF4). All work is carried out under our ISO 9001 certified quality management system (certificate 251677); the company holds Cyber Essentials certification, and every report is checked by a second engineer before issue.
Want the ground risk on your project set out properly?
Tell us about the site and the scheme. We will suggest the level of assessment that fits the decision you are making.