A Roadmap for the Comprehensive Assessment of Natech Risk

A Roadmap for the Comprehensive Assessment of Natech Risk: Management and Control of Technological Accidents Triggered by Natural Hazards in the Framework of Climate Change covers the latest advancements concerning the quantitative risk assessment and the management of cascading events involving technological accidents caused by natural hazards. These complex events are called Natech accidents, and their management and control are recognized as paramount priorities to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructures, and in particular of chemical and process facilities, in the framework of adaptation to climate change. The topic is introduced providing the description of past accidents, case-studies, and quantitative figures allowing the identification of the most vulnerable plant elements, of the complex features of accident scenarios, and of their rising trend possibly related to factors as climate change and growing industrialization. A state of the art of the available approaches to the assessment and management of Natech risk is provided. Advanced methodologies supporting a holistic approach to the assessment of scenarios driven by natural hazards are presented, enabling the identification and analysis of peculiar accident dynamics. In particular, the possible performance degradation of utilities and safety systems available on the sites and its role in accident initiation and escalation is addressed. Methodologies aiming at the assessment of the actual performance of safety barriers and safety systems during or immediately after the impact of a natural event are presented. Recent tools and data supporting the quantitative assessment of these features in the overall assessment of Natech risk are reported, highlighting the similarities with other typologies of cascading accidents. Several case studies are presented in the book, and each methodology presented is provided with an illustrative case-study providing guidance to its application.
- Provides user-friendly description of methodologies suitable for the application to complex industrial problems - Includes worked case-studies to explicitly drive the application of the proposed methodologies - Offers state-of-the-art, available tools to perform the assessment of Natech risk to provide a quick toolbox to be applied to complex industrial problems

Alessio Misuri received his Ph.D. in Structural and Environmental Health Monitoring and Management from the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2022, working on the development of comprehensive risk assessment approaches to assess complex cascading accidents triggered by natural hazards, at the Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering. During his Ph.D. he was hosted as visiting researcher by the Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI) of Kyoto University.Valerio Cozzani (1968) received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pisa (Italy) in 1996. During the Ph.D. he spent an year at the Industrial Hazard Unit (IPSC) of the Ispra European Community Joint Research Centre. After the Ph.D. he joined the National Research Group on Chemical and Environmental Risk of the Italian National Council of Research. Formerly lecturer at the University of Pisa, he is now professor at the Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering of Bologna University, where he leads the Laboratory on Industrial Safety and Environmental Sustainability. He is Director of the academic graduate and undergraduate programs in Chemical Engineering an lectures on unit operations, design, loss prevention and risk assessment. He coordinated several joint university-industry training projects. His main research experience is in the field of safety of chemical processes and of environmental and energy technologies. The specific subjects afforded in his research activity are, among others, the development of innovative methodologies and models for hazard and risk analysis, the development of models for equipment damage and the implementation of procedures for the quantitative assessment of accidental scenarios triggered by external hazard factors. He has a wide experience in leading national and international research projects funded either by public organizations or by private companies. He coordinates the Italian working party on safety in the chemical and process industry (CISAP) and is Member of the Working Party of Loss Prevention (EFCE). He received the Trevor Kletz Merit Award 2015 for outstanding contributions to the field of Process Safety. He serves as Associate Editor of Safety Science and is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Hazardous Materials and of the Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industry.

1. Introduction2. Features of Natech accidents in the framework of climate change3. State of the art in the quantitative risk assessment of Natech accidents4. Escalation of Natech accidents: methodologies for the identification and assessment of cascading sequences and domino effects5. A holistic approach to support quantitative Natech risk assessment and management6. Assessment of the performance of safety barriers during Natech accidents7. Methodologies for the quantitative risk assessment of Natech accidents considering the degradation of safety barriers8. Roadmap and tools for the prevention of Natech accidents under climate change9. Conclusions and future directions10. Glossary