Understanding the patterns and characteristics of Natech events in China

Abstract

With the frequent occurrence of natural disasters, natural hazard triggered technological accident (Natech) risk has attracted extensive attention from academia and industry. Natech events have the characteristics of various inducements and consequences, cascading chain reactions, and complex spatial interleaving, which leads to serious consequences. The Natech event is constantly threatening China's industrial safety production. However, the systematic analysis of Natech events in China is still lacking. The study counted 288 cases in the past 20 years and constructed Natech databases. Based on the theory of risk chain and risk system, a systematic horizontal and vertical analysis was developed for the first time. It aims to understand the characteristics of Natech events in terms of temporal and spatial, hazard factors, industry and risk material, consequences and hazard. In the results, Natech events showed a fluctuating trend. The southwest region (28.13%) and the middle Yellow River region (21.18%) belong to the critical control areas. China's industries were seriously affected by the disasters of meteorological (43.75%) and secondary, especially in the Chemical & Petrochemical and manufacturing. 64.58% of Natech events caused environmental pollution, and 13.19% of Natech events caused major or above consequences. Oil (31.25%) and hazardous chemicals (28.47%) were the main substances causing pollution, fire and explosion, which need to be controlled. The research preliminarily clarifies the risk chain and characteristics of Natech events, which provided the basis for Natech risk assessment.