This paper examines (1) the concept of risk ownership for natural hazard risk management; (2) what happens to risk ownership when natural hazard impacts, responses and responsibilities cross domains; and (3) existing arrangements in Australia that pertain to these concepts. These contribute to the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC project Mapping and Understanding Bushfire and Natural Hazard Vulnerability and Risks at the Institutional Scale. Domains are geographic, institutional or a combination of both. Risk ownership stems from two traditions: capitalism, where it links ownership of resources and the possibility of loss with control of those resources, and risk management, where a risk owner is a person or entity with the accountability and authority to manage a risk.

Risks that cross domains are by definition systemic, so ownership also needs to be treated systemically. The capitalistic aspect addresses the notion of resource ownership, the presence of risk and the act of taking responsibility for those risks. This expands to regulatory, legal, social and moral forms of ownership. The risk aspect nominates accountability and authority for risk management, which are quite different roles. We prefer to substitute responsibility for authority because it is better suited to both formal and informal roles. Both accountability and responsibility are needed to manage systemic risk that concern both tangible (economic) and intangible (social and environmental) values.

The project applies two linked frameworks: Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development Framework and the more conventional risk framework. The project uses them to assess ownership in three phases: (1) ownership of values at risk in the pre-risk or normal phase; (2) ownership of mitigating severe risks associated with events likely to cross domains resulting in disasters and allocation between normal and exceptional; (3) ownership in the post-event phase of recovery from damage and loss. Initial examples of these in the Australian context will be described.