Natech guide words: A new approach to assess and manage natech risk to ensure business continuity

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Highlights

  • Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters – CRED classification of natural hazards has been used for the study.

  • Natech accidents were studied for understanding the interaction of the natural forces with the technological sites.

  • Against each sub-hazards, guide words have been proposed to visualize and understand the Natech risk.

Abstract

The risk posed by natural hazards to the technological systems is known as Natech risk. It is different from the more widely known and studied risk posed by such sites to the environment and society. Though currently, available risk assessment techniques recognize Natech, the specific qualitative technique for Natech risk assessment and reduction has not yet been developed. After analyzing past data of Natech accidents, relevant guide words have been suggested in this study. These guide words will help anticipate Natech risk and visualize the Natech scenario. Once the Natech risk is identified, corresponding risk reduction measures can be taken to avoid possible Natech accidents and consequences.

Introduction

Modern society is technology-dependent, and technology cannot be separated from daily life. Although technology enhances the human experience, it comes at a cost and has associated risks. Generally, these risks are managed by state-of-the-art risk management systems that have been developed over a period of time and consider the environmental conditions. However, natural hazards often affect technological systems and cause disturbances in the operations, such as plant failures, equipment failures, process interruptions, and accidents. A well-known example of a natural disaster triggering a technological disaster is the Great East Japan Earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 on the Richter scale on March 11, 2011. The Tsunami generated by the earthquake triggered the worst nuclear accident in the history of Japan. Despite the best safety systems and emergency shutdown systems in place, the nuclear reactors melted because of cooling system failure. The radioactive material released from the melted reactors contaminated the surrounding area. This accident was also the worst industrial disaster in the world's history if damage control and cleanup costs are considered (Mihailidou et al., 2012).

Showalter and Myers (1992) investigated technological accidents triggered by natural hazards in 28 States of America. In their research, they documented that there were “228 accidents resulting from earthquakes, 28 from hurricanes, 16 from floods, 16 from lightning, 13 from high winds, seven from storms, and 6 for other reasons.” They named such accidents “Natechs,” a portmanteau of naturally triggered technological accidents (Ancione et al., 2016; Arellano et al., 2003; Cruz et al., 2001; Cruz and Okada, 2008; Kovacs et al., 2015; Krausmann and Cruz, 2013; Nuclear Energy Agency, 2018; Showalter, 1992).

There are many Natech accidents documented in the literature. Lindell and Perry (1997) documented 250 incidents in which earthquake-induced hazardous material (hazmat) was released in the United States (Lindell and Perry, 1997). The earthquake that occurred in Turkey on August 17, 1999, is another example of a Natech accident. Steinberg and Cruz (2004) studied this earthquake and found that several industrial sites were affected by the earthquake. They documented 21 instances of hazmat release associated with the earthquake (Steinberg and Cruz, 2004).

Another example is the fall of a spruce-fir tree because of high wind velocities in Italy on September 28, 2003. This fall created several emergencies and blackouts. An earthquake and accompanying 1.3 m wave height Tsunami at Tomakomai Coast in Japan on September 26, 2003, resulted in a storage tank fire at an oil refinery (Arellano et al., 2003). A review of 242 storage tank accidents at industrial facilities between 1960 and 2003 revealed that 33% of the storage tank accidents were caused by lightning (Chang and Lin, 2006). The U.S. National Hurricane Centre updated the costliest U.S. tropical cyclones list on January 26, 2018. The report shows that from 1900 to 1917, the United States experienced 41 hurricanes, which caused losses exceeding one billion U.S. dollars. Hurricane Katrina, which occurred in 2005, is the costliest storm on record, which caused the loss amounting to 125 billion U.S. dollars (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2018).

Humans have recognized the potential impacts of natural hazards on their existence, and they have reacted by creating safety systems to mitigate this hazard. Design standards are also evolving in response to Natech events so that technological systems can withstand severe natural hazards. However, the severity of natural hazards can be more than what the design parameters can accommodate. Natural hazards can incapacitate existing safety systems and can lead to disasters. In such scenarios, multiple instances of hazardous material release can coincide. The domino effect created by a Natech accident can extend beyond the boundaries of the affected technological system (Reniers and Cozzani, 2013), and the situation can become increasingly dangerous because emergency and response personnel may remain engaged in dealing with the natural disaster itself and may not be available to manage technological impacts (Cruz, 2012).

From 1980 to 2017, the world has witnessed a multifold increase in natural disasters, evident from Fig. 1 (Misuri et al., 2019). Earlier, Natech accidents were considered as high intensity–low probability cascading events associated with natural disasters. In recent years, climate change has changed both the magnitude and frequency of such events. Luo et al. (2020) analyzed the U.S.'s National Response Center (NRC) database. The national response Center is staffed all the time by the U.S. Coast Guard. Any U.S. citizen can report the release of hazardous material in the environment by calling the NRC helpline. They developed a machine learning model, Semi-Intelligent Natech Identification Framework (SINIF), to extract Natech accident data from the NRC database. They analyzed NRC data from 1990 to 2017 and extracted 32,841 Natech accidents from the total record of 826,078 reports. The extracted data shows an increasing trend in Natech accidents ((Luo et al., 2020) (Fig. 2). These events are no longer rare, and nor are they merely cascading effects of natural disasters. Therefore, Natech is a unique branch of disaster management, and the originating risk must be identified by using unique tools and techniques (Picou, 2009).

The number of climate and weather-related disasters registered in the U.S. from 1980 to 2017 (Misuri et al., 2019 (see Fig. 1).

Number of Natech accidents with various natural phenomena ((Luo et al., 2020).

Section snippets

Literature review

The literature review has been divided into two parts. The first part is related to the governments' legislative measures to manage the Natech risk, and the second part is a review of various Natech risk reduction methods.

Research gap and objectives

Due to a society increasingly being dependent on technology and the anticipated increase in the frequency and severity of climatic disasters, more regular occurrence of Natech events is foreseen. Very few countries, particularly the European Union, Japan, and the U.S., have recognized this hazard, and some legislative measures have been taken. These are administrative measures and deal with specific Natech risks like floods or earthquakes; however, they do not ask for comprehensive Natech risk

Methodology for creating Natech guide words

To achieve this study's aims and objectives, a set of guide words were explicitly developed for Natech events. The methodology adopted for creating these guide words is described below.

Study of failure modes

Though the data on the subject was abundantly available, a description of how exactly natural forces triggered technological accidents was rarely available. Most of the time, importance was given to damage to civil infrastructure and human casualties as an effect of disaster. Even if the effect on the technological site was described, it was not much use as it was only in the form of statistics, like the number of natural events, number of Natech accidents, its location, etc. Most of the time,

Discussion

Despite process safety assessments of technological sites considering various technical aspects, hazards created by natural forces are still neglected. A lack of awareness of Natech risk may be a reason for this. The guide words suggested in this study have been created for all natural hazard categories and subcategories. The Natech risk can be assessed by applying each guide word from every natural hazard subcategory to the technological system under consideration. These guide words can

Conclusion

Awareness regarding Natech risk is growing, but a qualitative tool for Natech risk assessment has not been developed. In this study, various guide words have been proposed against categories of natural hazards and their associated sub-hazards. Further, for every guiding word, a few possible ways of interaction have been suggested. The proposed Natech guide words can visualize negative impacts if a natural hazard affects a technological site. Existing techniques for Natech risk assessment can be

Data availability

All material used for the study is available on the internet and in academic journals.

Funding sources

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Declaration of competing interest

We do not have any conflict of interest with anyone or any organization.

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