Search

NaTech accidents are a class of cascading events that occur when natural and technological hazards collide. In the process industry, where multi-hazard substances are used in large quantities, failures due to natural events can bring simultaneously or sequentially events of acute toxicity, fire, and explosion, which might impact the population and the environment, also provoking economical losses. The risk analysis methodology used by the Seveso industry often resulted in scenarios related to NaTech events being excluded due to their low probability. However, the increasing impacts of climate change may lead to variations in the recurrence of severe unexpected natural events that will greatly alter the projected frequency of NaTech events. For this reason, it is critical that decision-makers be adequately informed about potential NaTech risks and consider them not only in industrial safety reports but also in the provisions of emergency and city plans. In this paper, a planning tool is used to assess NaTech risk at a Seveso facility that manufactures lubricating oil additives. A validated method was used to cross the information among the vulnerable industrial items, the typical damage modes triggered by the natural hazards, and the hazardous substances involved in the plant. The information was extracted from the public inventory of establishments at risk of major accidents connected with dangerous substances, and the safety report that the plant draws up. The results provide an early warning system to the decision-makers about the NaTech vulnerabilities that threaten both, human health, and the environment, contributing to increasing their awareness and preparedness. Further research is required to integrate this kind of analysis with diverse current methodologies for characterizing NaTech events within territorial and multi-risk approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adaptation to climate change in terms of national legislative actions, compensation mechanisms, sectorial risk guidelines is slowly proceeding among EU member states; in this context, local land-use planners lack of adequate tools to properly face Climate-related events. In particular, as far as it concerns NaTech risk, the effective implementation of dedicated measures at local level is difficult to reach; also, the methodologies elaborated till now rarely focused on the management of NaTech risk from the point of view of local urban and land-use planners and managers. An easy-to-use NaTech indicator is here proposed, aiming at providing Local administrations with a survey of the industries exposed to NaTech risk on their territory, and to signal possible critical situations to be managed. The first step for the development of the indicator consists of a questionnaire aimed at identifying potential vulnerable items and hazardous substances detained; then, both items and substances are rated to obtain a classification of potential NaTech vulnerability. NaTech indicator could be useful to increase the awareness and preparedness of public administrator and planners towards the increasing probability and impact of Na-Tech events; it has the advantage to be easy to use for not expert users and can guide the decision-makers in identifying the most vulnerable Na-tech areas in their territory. The NaTech indicator can be integrated with further in-depth studies, including i.e. the Integrated Quantitative risk-assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A semi-quantitative methodology at a local scale is presented, aimed at increasing the efficacy of Land Use Planning related to the Management of risks, in particular for multiple risks impinging on the same territory (Multi-risks). At the moment, each risk is managed through a dedicated sectorial plan, having its proper procedures and scale, and the only "meeting point" for these plans - at least in Italy - are the Municipal city plans. The Municipalities have to implement the contents related to the various risks and directly intervene on the territory, but the lack of linkage and coordination between the plans and the authorities in charge often makes the emergency management and LUP less effective towards the achievement of a real safety of territories. A semi-quantitative approach, based on an index scale from 0 to 3 onwards was developed for a direct use from Municipal technicians; the proposed scale is applied to measure both the impact of the risks and risk interaction. The methodology is composed by 4 steps: 1) characterization of the risks; 2) assignation of the ratings to the risks; 3) assessment of binary risk interactions; 4) assessment of the compatibility and planning phase. Each step is accompanied by GIS mapping. The methodology was tested on two Italian casestudies, two Municipalities affected by multiple types of risks which could interact; the proposed approach demonstrated to be able in identifying and bring multi-risks aspects to the attention of the decision makers, constituting a guide to risk that can be integrated with the existing planning instruments to improve the quality of decisions related to risks. The paper presents a further step in the research related to the methodology, investigating the influence on the interaction values provoked by the discretion in the assignation of the rating operated by the users. A sensitivity test was developed on one of the case studies analysed with the methodology; the interaction values demonstrated to be sensitive to the variations of the ratings, in particular in the zones near the change of scale intervals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The deep modifications to climate are currently provoking risks of increasing impact, that can cause unexpected consequences, interacting with other risks. However, the available planning regulations and instruments appear inadequate to face this challenge, most of all at a local scale. This paper presents a semi-quantitative methodology for the assessment of multiple risks, developed for the direct use of the municipality technicians, in order to increase their awareness towards multiple risks and unexpected events that could hit their territory. The methodology is based on the assignation of rates to the risks, and on a simple calculation of the binary interactions. It was tested on two Italian case studies, revealing a good feasibility in the results obtained for the interactions, and highlighting some problems neglected in the sectorial risk plans. The methodology is a background knowledge of the 'Responsible Risk Resilience Center' (R3C) of Politecnico di Torino, and it was furtherly developed through an in-depth analysis of the territorial vulnerabilities. This paper introduces two new indicators of sensitivity towards external risks, related to fire and flood risks, proposed for the application at a local scale. The indicators belong to a wider R3C framework in the phase of development to operationalize resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]