Developed by the DHS Risk Steering Committee (RSC), the purpose of the DHS Risk Lexicon is to establish and make available a comprehensive list of terms and meanings relevant to the practice of homeland security risk management and analysis. Accomplishing this goal improves the capability of the Department to assess and manage homeland security risk. To support integrated risk management for the Department, the DHS Risk Lexicon:
- Promulgates a common language to ease and improve communications for the Department and its partners;
- Facilitates the clear exchange of structured and unstructured data, essential to interoperability amongst risk practitioners; and
- Garners credibility and grows relationships by providing consistency and clear understanding with regard to the usage of terms by the risk community across the Department.
Developing terms, definitions, extended definitions, annotations, and examples is accomplished through a RSC working group known as the Risk Lexicon Working Group, which is open to all Department of Homeland Security Components. Definitions are validated against glossaries used by other countries and professional associations. All terms in the DHS Risk Lexicon were developed through the collective work of the Department’s risk community of interest. The DHS Risk Lexicon terms and definitions will be included as part of the DHS Lexicon and future editions will be coordinated by the RSC in collaboration with the DHS Lexicon Program. This is the second edition of the DHS Risk Lexicon and includes fifty new terms and definitions and updated definitions for twenty-three original terms from the 2008 edition.