Singular vs plural with multiple nouns stringed together

As a general rule, I learnt that when stringing together multiple nouns to form a noun phrase, the nouns acting as adjectives lose their ending "s", even if they carry a plural meaning.

For example:

• asset inventory (an inventory of many assets)


• sample collection (a collection of samples)


• system logs (multiple logs of multiple systems)

Now my question is: if the nouns on the left always lose their s (do they?), how can I distinguish when the noun is actually singular or plural? See the following examples:

• risk analysis (how can I tell apart if the analysis is of a single risk or multiple risks?)


• system log (is it the log of a single or multiple systems ? )



• vulnerability assessment (am I assessing a single vulnerability or more than one?)

and so on...

How can I avoid the ambiguity that derives from this kind of noun phrases?