Integrated Environmental Risk Assessment of Major Accidents in the Transport of Hazardous Substances

Ales Bernatik, David Rehak, Valerio Cozzani, Pavel Foltin, Jarmil Valasek and Frantisek Paulus
Additional contact information
Ales Bernatik: Faculty of Safety Engineering, VSB—Technical University of Ostrava, 70030 Ostrava, Czech Republic
David Rehak: Faculty of Safety Engineering, VSB—Technical University of Ostrava, 70030 Ostrava, Czech Republic
Valerio Cozzani: Laboratory of Industrial Safety and Environmental Sustainability—DICAM, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy
Pavel Foltin: Faculty of Military Leadership, University of Defence, 66210 Brno, Czech Republic
Jarmil Valasek: Population Protection Institute, 53341 Lazne Bohdanec, Czech Republic
Frantisek Paulus: Population Protection Institute, 53341 Lazne Bohdanec, Czech Republic

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 21, 1-19

Abstract: At present, the environmental risk assessment of major accidents is mainly carried out for stationary risk sources. Only marginal attention is paid to mobile risk sources, while the currently available methodologies require a relevant expertise and time for their application, which is only partially possible in most scenarios. In the present study, an integrated approach to environmental risk assessment in the transport of hazardous substances (iTRANSRISK) was developed. The approach proposed is based on the principle of index-based assessment of leakage scenarios involving toxic and flammable substances during transport, in the context of indexing environmental vulnerability. The key point of the method is the conversion of local-specific data concerning the risk potential of the transported substance, the consequences and the probability of a major accident, and environmental vulnerability assessment into a single entity. The created integral approach is proposed for the needs of carriers of the hazardous substances and the state administration bodies. The proposed approach is determined for the screening risk assessment at the beginning of the process of the planning a suitable transport routes and the results are for information only. An example of the application of the iTRANSRISK integrated approach is demonstrated considering an explosion scenario following a propane tanker leak (18 t) in a forested area, with moderately susceptible soils and no surface water or groundwater affected.

Keywords: integrated approach; risk assessment; major accident; environmental damage; vulnerability assessment; transport of hazardous substances (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/11993/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/21/11993/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:21:p:11993-:d:668430

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().