Holistic Risk Assessment Across the Construction Project Life Cycle for Sustainable Project Delivery

Risk management is a critical process for achieving construction project objectives and supporting more sustainable project delivery. However, most existing research focuses on isolated aspects of risk, lacking an integrated approach that examines how risks evolve across the entire project life cycle. This study addresses this gap by identifying and assessing key risks affecting construction projects in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with attention to how improved risk understanding can contribute to more resilient and sustainable project outcomes. Through a literature review, fifteen critical risks involving various stakeholders were identified. A questionnaire survey was conducted to evaluate the probability and impact of these risks on project cost. The study analyzes how these risks manifest across the project life cycle and affect different stakeholders. Using a coordinate system, it visualizes risk behavior across phases, offering a dynamic view of risk exposure. Findings show that the construction phase was the riskiest, followed by the handover, design, and feasibility phases. Additionally, delayed payments by owners emerged as the most significant risk, followed by poor contractor management. The study proposes a modified probability–impact matrix to account for multi-phase risks. These findings provide valuable insights for construction firms, helping improve stakeholder risk allocation, inform contract negotiations, and enhance project delivery in the UAE context while contributing to more efficient, responsible, and sustainable project management practices.