The continued rise in accident and ill health statistics throughout the member states of the European Union indicate that the standards of occupational health, safety and environmental control require further improvement to minimise the current level of loss. Management systems are regarded as an effective means of reducing this loss by continuously improving standards. Whilst there is much discussion and debate about the possibilities of integrating management systems, at present, there are no national or international published integrated management standards, although some multi-national companies have introduced their own internal integrated standards. The research explored the development of an integrated health, safety and environmental (HSE) management system within a range of industrial organisations. This included the development of tools for successful implementation of integrated systems, specifically for significance review, risk assessment and auditing. Resources and accreditation constraints precluded exhaustive testing of all clauses within the proposed integrated management standard. However, analysis of key aspects of the standard revealed: 1. The introduction and use of separate health, safety and environmental (HSE) management systems improved the standards of risk control within organisations. 2. Organisations perceived that there were clear business advantages in some form of integration of existing standards. 3. The developed integrated HSE standard was technically possible in the area of policy development, process operations, working instructions and documentation. However, the integration of risk assessment and audit tools gave limited advantages compared to existing separate systems. 4. The proposed integrated HSE standard complied with both individual European member states national legislative requirements and European/World-wide management standard criteria. In summary this thesis represents an original contribution to the field of integrated management systems. The thesis also identifies areas of further work that will increase the knowledge base, scope of application of the work carried out.

The methodological framework for informed decision-making known as Environmental Systems Assessment (ESA) is derived from, and is shown to contain, the existing tools of Risk Assessment, Decision Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Communication is identified as a problem within ESA. A panel process in local waste management between a UK Council, its local lay public and experts illustrates a new methodological implementation of ESA in which risk, decision analytic and life cycle information were all present in parallel and in different forms. These included an innovative and interactive multimedia CD-ROM tailored to the locality (known as 'WOMBLE') and the WISARD software developed with, among other bodies, the Environment Agency of England and Wales. The communications and information in the process are evaluated by social research, the learning of the participants is assessed and it is shown that while a number of significant actions were agreed upon, individual preferences were still stable and significantly different. The potential of the approach is assessed.

Many infrastructure networks rely on each other to deliver utilities and services to the community. In the event of a disaster, these networks can sustain significant damage. It is therefore important to identify interdependencies among networks to mitigate the disaster consequences. In 2003, Public Safety Canada (PSC) and NSERC initiated the Joint Infrastructure Interdependencies Research Program (JIIRP) for this purpose. The research was carried out at six Universities across Canada including the University of British Columbia (UBC). The aim of JIIRP at UBC was to study infrastructure interdependencies during disasters in order to aid in decision making. This involved the development disaster simulation methodology and tool, and the implementation of a case study. UBC's Point Grey campus was used as case study. The campus is located in southwestern British Columbia, a known seismic zone, therefore earthquake disaster scenario was chosen. Reasonable estimations of the expected seismic damage and losses are required in order to simulate a realistic disaster scenario. For this reason, in this thesis, seismic risk assessment was carried out for the buildings at UBC. This involved the development of a building database, the assessment of the expected level of damage to the structural and nonstructural building components, and the estimation of monetary, human and functionality losses. Buildings in the database were classified into prototypes and the damage was estimated for several levels ofintensity using damage probability matrices. As expected, the most vulnerable buildings on campus were those containing unreinforced masonry. These buildings make up 7% of the buildings on campus. The least vulnerable buildings were multi-family residential woodbuildings which account for 27% of the buildings on campus. Losses were estimated following the damage assessments. Casualties were estimated for three times of day. 2PM was determined to be the critical time of day as the campus population is the greatest at this time. Monetary loss and functionality trends were examined with respect to earthquake intensity and it was shown that for moderate intensity earthquakes, the losses depend primarily on nonstructural damage, while structural damage plays the most important role for higher intensities. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Civil Engineering, Department of / Graduate

This research aims to develop a large-scale locally relevant flood risk screening tool, that is, one capable of generating accurate probabilistic inundation maps quickly while still detecting localized nuisance-destructive flood potential. The CASCADE 2001 routing model is integrated with GIS to compare the predicted flood response to heavy rains at the watershed, subwatershed, and municipal levels. Therefore, the objective is to evaluate the impact of scale for determining flood risk in a community. The findings indicate that a watershed-level analysis captures most flooding. However, the flood prediction improves to match existing FEMA flood maps as drill-down occurs at the subwatershed and municipal scales. The drill-down modeling solution presented in this study provides the necessary degree of local relevance for excellent detection in developed areas because of the downscaling techniques and local infrastructure. This validated model framework supports the development and prioritization of protection plans that address flood resilience in the context of watershed master planning and the Community Rating System. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2021. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

No description available.

The identification of potential accident conditions for a nuclear power plant requires a systematic evaluation of postulated hazards, and accurate methods for predicting the behaviour of the system if these hazards were to occur. It is particularly important to identify scenarios which carry severe consequences (e.g., large radioactive releases to the environment), even if the conditions have a low probability of occurrence, so that preventative measures can be implemented. Dynamic probabilistic risk assessment (DPRA) is a field of analysis that aims to determine the failure pathways of complex systems while simultaneously analyzing the time-evolution of the proposed accident. By studying the dynamics of the system, DPRA methods are capable of analyzing the impact of impaired or late equipment response, human actions during the transient, and the inter relationship between different systems and failures. This approach promotes realistic predictions of the complex response of the system under accident conditions, and for the dynamics of the accident progression to unfold with timing that is not pre-determined by an analyst, thereby removing potential user bias from the results. The work that is outlined in this thesis was undertaken in order to demonstrate the DPRA software platform called RAVEN, and to leverage its application in the near-future probabilistic assessment of accident conditions applied to CANDU reactor simulation models. Features of the work include: • Demonstration of the capability of RAVEN to produce predictable results using the dynamic event tree (DET) approach; • The development of a code interface to allow RAVEN to drive DET simulations of TRACE simulation models; and • Demonstration of the capability of the developed RAVEN-TRACE interface to produce predictable results for systems that are well-understood. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Mississippi leads the nation in tornado deaths per unit area. Previous risk assessment studies have indicated a connection between housing type and fatalities but have focused only on a national scale. The purpose of this study was to provide a local scale risk assessment for Mississippi. Each county?s individual tornado risks were combined with US Census county housing data for each decade from 1960-2000. The study found that the comparable risk to life and property is highest in Harrison County and Hinds County, but with proper shelters and community planning this risk would be mitigated.

No description available.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. Johannesburg 2015 / Exposure to inorganic and organic pollutants residues causes negative effects to human health. They can cause damage to the living organism as well as to the environment. Humans take up these pollutants through skin absorption, respiration and ingestion of contaminated food and also the drinking water as a potential contaminants exposure route for inorganic and organic pollutants to humans. Studies have shown that inorganic and organic pollutants can be retained in food crops at higher than the permissible levels, thus posing some health risks to consumers. This study sought to assess the potential risk posed by inorganic and organic pollutants to human health as a result of consuming raw food and processed food cooked in traditional utensils. The food samples and the traditional utensils were collected in Kinshasa and Johannesburg markets. In total ninety- two food samples were assessed. The food crops included: cabbage, cassava, beans, beef meat and fish (tilapia). Ten trace elements, namely: Al, As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Pb, Se and Zn were analysed in raw food samples using ICP-OES, ICP-MS and mercury analyser. These metals were also analysed in food cooked with the traditional utensils. The health risk indices calculated were: Daily Intake of Metal (DIM) and Hazard Index (HI). The results obtained reveal that the raw food collected in Johannesburg markets contained a significant (p ˂ 0.05) higher concentration in all elements than the food samples collected in Kinshasa markets. Hg was detected only in fish samples. It was observed that cooking utensils can leach some significant quantities of trace elements into food during processing, hence resulting increase the concentration of these metals in processed foods. The DIM exceeded the oral reference dose (Rfd) and the HI were ˃ 1 in all the food cooked. The results of metal found in this current investigation were above the standard permissible limit set by FAO/WHO. On the other hand, the levels of 17 organochlorine pesticides were assessed in uncooked and cooked beans, cabbage, cassava, fish and beef meat collected in Kinshasa and Johannesburg markets. It was noticed from the results recorder that the mean concentration of organochlorine pesticides in uncooked food collected in Johannesburg market were significantly high (p ˂ 0.05) than the uncooked food from Kinshasa markets. DDE recorded its highest mean level (253.58±4.78 μg kg-1) in beef meat samples collected in Johannesburg markets. The results from the current study revealed that after cooking the amounts of organochlorines were significantly reduce than the uncooked food. Residue amounts of organochlorine pesticides found in this study are considerably lower than the recommended amount of organochlorines set by WHO/FAO (300 μg kg-1). / MT2016

This dissertation develops contributions in the area of supply chain risk assessment and mitigation. In each of the three main chapters, we present and analyze a risk assessment or mitigation problem for supply chains. The first problem is to assess the impact of infrastructure disruptions on supply chain performance; the second problem is to develop an operational control approach to mitigate risks posed by uncertain events that disrupt network synchronization; and the third problem is to analyze the risk posed by an adversary seeking to use a supply chain as a weapon. Chapter II presents a methodology for assessing the excess supply chain costs that arise from a failure of or an attack on a critical supply chain infrastructure component. Different from many subjective risk assessment practices, our methodology provides a systematic approach to search for the most vulnerable supply chain components and measure the economic consequences of disruption. Modeling a supply chain using network flow models, we analyze the impact of disruption by linear programming theory, and propose an efficient assessment algorithm based on the dual network simplex method. Finally, a case study on the U.S. corn export supply chain is presented. Chapter III discusses the mitigation of risks created by transit time uncertainties in less-than-truckload (LTL) line-haul operations. Transit time uncertainty may undermine the performance of the load plan, which specifies the route for each shipment and is synchronized to reduce line-haul costs. In our study, risk assessment of a load plan is performed via a dispatch simulation under randomly generated travel time scenarios. The risk consequence is measured by the average excess operational cost, including transportation cost and handling cost. Compared to existing line-haul network models embedded within integer programming approaches for load plan optimization, the dispatch simulation can evaluate the performance of a load plan more realistically. In addition, a heuristic search algorithm based on "multi-tree pivots" is provided to obtain a cost-efficient load plan that is robust to transit time uncertainties. Chapter IV presents methodology to assess the consequence of risks which arise from the intentional contamination of a food supply chain. Different from many risk management practices, the source of risk in this problem is an intelligent adversary, e.g., a terrorist group, who intends to deliver chemical or biological toxins to consumers using the supply chain. First, a general modeling scheme based on state-space models is provided to describe the dissemination of toxin across consumed products in a food supply chain. Then, a case study based on a representative liquid egg supply chain is presented. Based on the system model, a risk assessment for different supply chain designs is performed by simulation. Moreover, an in-depth analysis is conducted to determine the worst-case consequence given an intelligent attack considering the operational characteristics of the system. The worst-case consequence tool developed is designed to be embedded within any risk assessment approach.