Cave Diving Risk Assessment

The Cave Diving Group is a volunteering body whose main goals are the promotion of safe cave diving practises and the exploration of flooded caves.

Cave diving is a hazardous activity that carries significant inherent risks of personal harm or injury, including death.

This Cave Diving Risk Assessment has been developed by the Cave Diving Group, a volunteering body whose main goals are the promotion of safe cave diving practises and the exploration of flooded caves. Its members consist of explorers who carry out sport and exploratory cave diving both in Britain and abroad. These members also assist newer members on a volunteer basis to safely use well established safe cave diving techniques, so that they may further their experience.

By participating in voluntary, recreational cave diving under the auspices of the Cave Diving Group you are considered to have read and understood this Risk Assessment, to have acknowledge that incidents can occur without negligence and to have accepted your personal responsibility for the safe conduct of cave diving.

This Cave Diving Risk Assessment is provided by the Cave Diving Group of Great Britain as a generic illustration of some of the risks that are associated with recreational cave diving in a voluntary setting under the Constitution and Rules of the Group. Individuals are obliged to consider other further risks relevant to their own personal situation.

In addition to the risks associated cave diving a caver diver will also be exposed to the risks associated with caving. This Risk Assessment does not assess the risks associated with general caving either on approach to a sump or beyond a sump.

This Cave Diving Risk Assessment was compiled by voluntary cave divers and does not represent a professional Risk Assessment of the risks associated with cave diving.

This Cave Diving Risk Assessment is not exhaustive and there will be additional risks, both foreseeable and unforeseeable, that will affect the safety of any cave diver.

This Risk Assessment is relevant to cave diving by cave divers of Trainee or Qualified status, operating either independently, in a team or in a concurrent group of solo divers, for recreational or exploratory purposes in accordance with the Constitution and Rules of the Group. The Risk Assessment does not include open water hazards, nor is it relevant to the buddy system.  It is provided as a training aid and is no substitute for instruction in cave diving.

The current version of the Cave Diving Risk Assessment can be accessed here