Abstract
Recent chemical accidents precipitated by natural disasters have prompted governments in the United States, Japan, and Europe, among other countries, to re-evaluate current practices in the design and risk management of industrial facilities. This paper presents an overview of natural hazard design considerations and external events risk management requirements in the industrial sector, with particular emphasis on industrial practices in the United States, Japan, and Europe. The analysis shows that although regulations exist to ensure industrial plant structures are built to resist natural hazards (up to the design level), there are few laws to address the performance of non-structural elements and safety and emergency response measures during a natural disaster. Laws usually also refer to natural hazards only indirectly, and provisions to prevent or respond to simultaneous disasters from single or multiple sources concurrent with the natural disaster are usually not present.
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Notes
The distance to the endpoint is the distance a toxic vapor cloud, heat from a fire, or blast waves from an explosion will travel before dissipating to the point that serious injuries from short-term exposure will no longer occur.
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Acknowledgements
The research work for this study in the United States was performed in collaboration with Dr Laura J. Steinberg at Tulane University under a grant from the US National Science Foundation (CMS-0085265). The authors would like to thank the University of North Texas, and particularly the Department of Public Administration for facilitating a leave of absence to pursue research in Japan. Financial support for research in Japan has been provided in part by a research fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and the Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto University, Japan.
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Cruz, A.M., Okada, N. Consideration of natural hazards in the design and risk management of industrial facilities. Nat Hazards 44, 213–227 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-007-9118-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-007-9118-1