Implications of the Uncertainties Present in Risk Assessment of Chemical Installations to Risk-informed Decision Making: the Case of Land-use Planning

This paper deals with the uncertainties present in the results of risk assessment of chemical installations and it examines their implications to land-use planning decisions. In particular, the results from the EU funded research project ASSURANCE are used as a case-study. Three types of land use planning approaches are considered, namely, a “consequence-based” approach, a “risk-based” using only individual risk criterion, and a “risk-based” approach using both individual risk and societal risk criteria. The analysis demonstrates that the landuse planning decisions are significantly affected by the uncertainties in the assessment of both the consequences and the frequencies of the potential accident scenarios.