NaTech risk analysis in the context of land use planning. Case study: Petroleum products storage tank farm next to a residential area

Natural disasters affect communities in a negative way throughout the world and their effects are expected to become more severe, as it is extremely difficult to keep up with resilience measures and disaster risk reduction actions in the rapid changing societal context. Major accidents within industrial sites can be caused by internal factors, such as equipment malfunction, human error, failure of safety measures etc., as well as by external factors, such as natural events - called NaTech events. The present paper focuses on the case study of a tank farm for the storage of petroleum products, located in a high seismic risk area in the South-Central part of Romania. The aim of the paper is to emphasize the difference between the individual and societal risk results in case of internal technological accidents and in case of adding a NaTech event triggered by a high magnitude earthquake in the area, for the same tank farm. Results highlight the fact that quantitative risk assessments which take into account NaTech scenarios should be included in the risk analysis process for industrial sites and for land-use planning purposes as well. © Copyright 2014, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l.