Decision-makers (local, national and European) and experts involved in land-use planning activities in the vicinity of hazardous industrial facilities are often confronted with major technical and socio-political challenges and difficulties. In addition to, and complementarily with existing initiatives, INERIS and other interested partners (JRC-IPSC-MAHB, Karlstad University...) suggest that a dedicated project group on land-use planning is created under the aegis of ESREDA.

Rationale of the PG LUP

The aim of this project group is to contribute, on a scientific and applied research basis, to an improved integration of hazardous industrial activities (facilities and transport) in their direct spatial and socio-economic environment. This integration depends heavily on a land-use planning approach (incl. building codes). Members of the ESREDA network have already acknowledged the relevance of land-use planning as a way to reduce industrial risks.

This interest in land-use planning issues has for instance been demonstrated during the following ESREDA Seminars – either directly related to planning issues, or including spatially relevant features (e.g.: transport). These seminars include:

• « On The Geographical Component of Safety Management:Combining Risk, Planning and Stakeholder Perspectives », Karlstad (Sweden), 14-15 June 2005;
• « Decision Analysis: Methodology and Applications for Safety of Transportation and Process Industries », Delft (The Netherlands), 18-19 November 2002. Other transport-related seminars include : Oslo (Sweden, 1999) and Huddersfiled (U.K., 1993) ;
• « Risk Management & Human Resliability in Social Context », Karlstad, 16 June 2000.

The European Commission also acknowledged the relevance of land-use and planning approaches to industrial hazards, as witnessed by the relatively recent establishment of a working group on Land-use Planning in the Context of Major Accident Hazards (Christou, et al., 2003).

Goals
This project group shall aim at the following three major objectives:

• Before industrial accidents:
  • Develop methodologies for hazard impact quantification in relation to accident scenarios. This task includes probability-based risk analysis around industrial facilities;
  • Assess and reduce vulnerability of industrial activities to external threats (natural and man-made);
  • Standardise methodologies for identification, ranking and mapping of human and structural assets exposed to the consequences of industrial accidents. This task includes methodologies for vulnerability assessment;
  • Develop land-use planning regulations that reduce social exposure to industrial hazards;
  • Establish industry-State-society dialogue and governance protocols to improve social acceptability of industrial risks. This task includes modelling of and support to decision-making.
• During industrial accidents:
  • Conduct research for the design and benchmarking of plans and procedures for the management of industrial accidents and other emergencies.

• After industrial accidents:
  • Set up contingency planning for continuation of industrial activities (production; employment);
  • Learn lessons from the management of major accidents, crises or disasters;
  • Update land-use planning regulations according to lessons learned.

The three objectives indicated above have direct implications in terms of methodologies and data management (collection; monitoring; analysis; storage/dissemination). These include:

• Methodologies:
• Analysis of natural hazard impact on industrial safety (risk analysis; “domino” effect);
• Assessment of the consequences of industrial accidents on the natural environment;
• Assessment of social vulnerability to industrial accidents (including: economic impacts of accidents; cost-benefit analyses).
• Data management:
• Protocols for data collection, assessment (reliability; confidence) and analysis;
• Technical data (industrial systems; natural processes) and socio-economic data
• Data on storage/transport activities (logistics; fluxes)
• Improvement of post-accident analysis : methodologies; data collection; data bases

If you are interested to participate to this Project Group, please contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it