OECD Studies in Risk Management - Italy: Industrial Hazards triggered by floods
Floods and industrial accidents are two major sources of risk which have received renewed attention from the public and policy-makers in most OECD countries in recent years. Catastrophic flooding events have affected many countries, in particular in Europe, since the second half of the 1990s. Damage induced by floods is on the rise, and the influence of factors such as climate change, urbanisation and inappropriate land use in this trend is now widely discussed. Hazardous industrial activities, on the other hand, have caused several disasters very recently, as in Toulouse (France) in September 2001. This has called into question the adequacy of existing regulations and of their enforcement, and shed light on the vulnerability of inhabited areas which have developed in the vicinity of hazardous industrial installations.
While public debate and policy-making have started to address these issues, several events in different parts of the world have illustrated the potentially catastrophic interaction of hazards such as flooding and industrial accidents. These experiences and an emerging body of literature suggest that a compartmented approach to risk management can fail to handle effectively such combined hazards.
The aim of this case study is to document the current state of play regarding the risk of accidents triggered by floods, and to prepare the ground for a self-assessment and a review of the way these risks are assessed within existing risk management systems in Italy.
The study is organised in four parts. The first two parts provide a general overview of recent developments in industrial accidents and in flooding, respectively. They review major events, questions of risk acceptability by the public, principal legal and regulatory initiatives, and emphasise emerging issues. The third part focuses on the risk of industrial accidents triggered by floods. The fourth part describes the general context regarding floods and industrial safety in Italy, and the way the relevant risk management processes are organised. The study concludes with a proposal for a self-assessment and review of related risk management policies in Italy. Annex 1 to the study presents the Italian flood management and industrial management systems following the project’s methodological framework. Annex 2 contains a comprehensive list of the laws of interest for the case study. Annex 3 proposes three questionnaires, designed as a tool for self-assessment and review, for the second phase of the project. Members of the Steering Group to the Project are presented in Annex 4.
Long abstract
