Defining Risk Assessment and How It Is Used for Environmental Protection and Its Potential Role for Managing Nanotechnology Risks

2017 ◽  
pp. 31-60
Author(s):  
Jo Anne Shatkin
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Potential Role

Applying the Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) to Improve Safety Management of Oil and Gas Pipeline Stations in China

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenxing Feng ◽  
Xiaoqiang Xiang ◽  
Guangming Jia ◽  
Lianshuang Dai ◽  
Yulei Gu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Hazard Identification ◽  
Gas Pipeline ◽  
Industrial Safety ◽  
Quantitative Risk Assessment ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Land Resource ◽  
Oil Pipeline

The oil and gas pipeline companies in China are facing unprecedented opportunities and challenges because of China’s increasing demand for oil and gas energy that is attributed to rapid economic and social development. Limitation of land resource and the fast urbanization lead to a determinate result that many pipelines have to go through or be adjacent to highly populated areas such as cities or towns. The increasing Chinese government regulation, and public concerns about industrial safety and environmental protection push the pipeline companies to enhance the safety, health and environmental protection management. In recent years, PetroChina Pipeline Company (PPC) pays a lot of attention and effort to improve employees and public safety around the pipeline facilities. A comprehensive, integrated HSE management system is continuously improved and effectively implemented in PPC. PPC conducts hazard identification, risk assessment, risk control and mitigation, risk monitoring. For the oil and gas stations in highly populated area or with numerous employees, PPC carries out quantitative risk assessment (QRA) to evaluate and manage the population risk. To make the assessment, “Guidelines for quantitative risk assessments” (purple book) published by Committee for the Prevention of Disasters of Netherlands is used along with a software package. The basic principles, process, and methods of QRA technology are introduced in this article. The process is to identify the station hazards, determinate the failure scenarios of the facilities, estimate the possibilities of leakage failures, calculate the consequences of failures and damages to population, demonstrate the individual risk and social risk, and evaluate whether the risk is acceptable. The process may involve the mathematical modeling of fluid and gas spill, dispersion, fire and explosion. One QRA case in an oil pipeline station is described in this article to illustrate the application process and discuss several key issues in the assessment. Using QRA technique, about 20 stations have been evaluated in PPC. On the basis of the results, managers have taken prevention and mitigation plans to control the risk. QRAs in the pipeline station can provide a quantitative basis and valuable reference for the company’s decision-making and land use planning. Also, QRA can play a role to make a better relationship between the pipeline companies and the local regulator and public. Finally, this article delivers limitations of QRA in Chinese pipeline stations and discusses issues of the solutions.

GIS and Remote Sensing in Environmental Risk Assessment

2011 ◽  
pp. 840-847 ◽  
Author(s):  
X. Mara Chen
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Environmental Risk Assessment ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Environmental Risks ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Gis And Remote Sensing ◽  
Risk Assessment And Management

The existence, well-being, and sustainable development of the global economy hinges upon the state of the earth’s environment. Effective environmental risk assessment and management issues have become increasingly important. With the ever-growing global population and expanding economic development, we consume more natural resources, produce more waste, and develop more areas into the regions that are prone to environmental risks. Although humans have interacted with the environment for thousands of years, environmental risk assessment and management is only a recent research undertaking. As the industrialization has made the human-environment interactions more dynamic and complex, the increased environmental risks have propelled and compelled people to use technologies for identifying and solving problems. The earliest global environmental applications of remote sensing and GIS technologies began in the 1960s, particularly marked by the successful launch of the TIROS- 1, the first meteorological satellite, and the development of computer-based geographic information systems (GIS). The story Silent Spring (Carson, 1962) awoke the public’s environmental consciousness and promoted the public demands for governments to set up environmental protection policies and research priorities. The birth of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970 set the stage for modern environment risk assessment. The launch of the LANDSAT program in 1972 created a new way for monitoring global land use and land cover changes (Foley, 1999; Goward, Masek, Williams, Irons, & Thompson, 2001).

Formal Safety Assessment and Goal Based Regulations at IMO: Lessons Learned (Invited Lecture)

2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rolf Skjong
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Safety Assessment ◽  
International Association ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Maritime Industry ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
Formal Safety Assessment

In the maritime industry the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the UN organization responsible for developing international safety and environmental protection regulations. IMO has now developed the second version of ‘Guidelines for Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) for use in the IMO rule making process’. The Guidelines are available as circulars both from the Marine Safety Committee (MSC) and the Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC). This standard is, as far as the author knows, the first risk assessment standard adopted in an UN organization. The work with developing this standard was initiated in 1995 at IMO based on an UK initiative. As there have been some attempts to develop internationally accepted risk assessment and risk management standards also in other industries, this paper tries to describe some of the experience and lessons learned from developing and implementing FSA at IMO. Paralleling the development of the guidelines there has been a number of applications of the guidelines, recently focusing on bulk carrier safety. Relevant studies have been carried out by UK, by Japan, by Norway and International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), and by the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS). These studies will be briefly reviewed with respect to methods used, assumptions made and conclusions drawn. The entire process from the initial terms of reference formulated by IMO to the final decisions is considered. The main conclusion is that the maritime industry has made a lot of progress, quite fast, in the use of risk assessment as part of the decision making process. This being the case, despite the many communication problems that arises in discussing risk issues in international forums. Furthermore, the FSA has helped balancing the often conflicting interest of the flag states and non-governmental organizations present in IMO. In 2004, a new initiative was taken on developing Goal Based Standards at IMO. This initiative was taken by Greece and Bahamas, and has now been debated at three meetings of MSC. The paper will also discuss the relationship between GBS and FSA based on the experience gained.

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