Natural Hazard and Risk Management for Pipelines

Pipelines and other linear facilities that traverse mountainous terrain may be subject to rock fall and rock slide hazards. A system is required to determine which sites pose the greatest hazard to the facility. Once sites are ranked according to hazard exposure, a risk management program involving inspection, monitoring, contingency planning and/or mitigation can be implemented in a systematic and defensible manner. A hazard rating methodology was developed to identify and characterize rock slope hazards above a South American Concentrate Pipeline, and to provide a relative ranking of hazard exposure for the pipeline, an access road and operational personnel. The rating methodology incorporates the geometry of the right-of-way, estimated pipe depth, staff and vehicle occupancy time, failure mechanism and magnitude, and the annual probability of hazard occurrence. This information is used in a risk-based framework to assign relative hazard ratings within rock slope sections of relatively uniform hazard exposure. This paper outlines a general framework for natural hazard and risk management along linear facilities, describes the rock slope hazard rating methodology, and illustrates how the system was applied along a South American Concentrate Pipeline.

Rockfalls pose significant threats to infrastructure, transportation routes, and human safety in mountainous regions, making them a critical concern in natural hazard and risk management. Accurate prediction of rockfall behavior is essential for designing effective mitigation strategies. The normal coefficient of restitution (Rn) is a key kinematic parameter for modeling falling rock dynamics, specifically quantifying the energy retained after collision between a rock and a slope surface. While this parameter is not directly used in prevention design, it is crucial for predicting the movement and trajectory of falling rocks and can indirectly support the development of more effective hazard mitigation strategies. However, Rn is influenced by multiple factors, including slope angle, surface material, falling rock shape, and initial velocity. The interactions among these factors make a precise prediction of Rn particularly challenging. Existing theoretical and empirical formulas typically consider individual factors in isolation, often neglecting their interactions, which leads to significant discrepancies in the results. To address this gap, we conducted a series of laboratory physical model tests to investigate the interactions among highly sensitive controlling factors and improve the accuracy of Rn prediction. A self-designed release apparatus, coupled with a high-speed recording and analysis system, was used to capture full kinematic data during rockfall collisions on slopes. This study not only examined how the main controlling factors and their interactions affect Rn but also developed a multi-factor interaction regression model, which was verified using on-site test data. The results show that the effect of the main controlling factors decreases in the following order: falling rock shape, slope surface material, initial velocity, and slope angle. Considering that falling rock shape and slope surface material cannot be quantitatively evaluated, the shape factor (η) and material factor (Aslope) are proposed to represent two controlling factors, respectively. Specifically, increases in η, Aslope, initial velocity, and slope angle are negatively correlated with Rn. Highly significant interactions were observed among falling rock shape–slope surface material, falling rock shape–initial velocity, falling rock shape–slope angle, slope surface material–initial velocity, and falling rock shape–slope surface material–initial velocity. These interactions mitigate the Rn reduction, resulting in a weaker effect than the stacking effect of the individual factors. The phenomenon is primarily attributed to the fact that high-level η, Aslope, initial velocity, and slope angle diminish the effect of intersecting factors. Finally, a comparison of the multi-factor interaction model with on-site tests and empirical formulas revealed the accuracy of the proposed model.

Terasen Pipelines (Terasen) owns and operates an 1146 km low vapour pressure petroleum products pipeline between Edmonton, Alberta and Burnaby, British Columbia. Its right-of-way passes through some of the most geotechnically, hydrotechnically, and environmentally challenging terrain in Western Canada. This paper describes the latest advancement of a natural hazards and risk management database application that has supported a 6-year hazard management program to quantitatively assess and prioritize the geotechnical and hydrotechnical risk along the pipeline. This database was first reported at IPC 2002 in a paper entitled “Natural hazard database application — A tool for pipeline decision makers” [1]. This second paper describes the advancements since then, including the addition of the Hydrotechnical Field Inspection Module (FIM), an add-on tool that allows field inspection observations to adjust hazard and vulnerability. This paper discusses the challenges in building a methodology that is practical enough for field maintenance personnel to use yet sufficiently comprehensive to accurately describe improving or worsening hydrotechnical hazard conditions. Functionality to enter hazard inspection data, review inspection results in the office, and authorize changes to the hydrotechnical hazard probabilities are described in the paper and demonstrated in the conference presentation. The relationship between revised hazard, vulnerability, risk, and response thresholds (such as inspection frequency, monitoring, site surveys, or mitigation) are demonstrated using a river crossing with a dynamic hazard history. As in previous years, this paper is targeted to pipeline managers who are seeking a systematic hazard and risk management approach for their natural hazards.

In this paper, we show how the concept of tipping points can be interpreted by using the example of natural hazard management. Until now, despite the increasing amount of papers on tipping points in the assessment of geomorphologic hazards and the associated dynamics of research on climate change, there has been little empirical or theoretical engagement with tipping points in risk management and in the adaptive capacity of individual actors or social systems. By bridging this gap, we focus on adaptation initiatives to mountain hazard management and on the question of how these initiatives were triggered using three different study sites in Austria. Necessary system changes root in different nutshells, such as lack of funding, lack of legal incentives to include local interests or lack of space, where classical structural protection schemes cannot respond to the emerging challenges of system dynamics. This paper used a mixed-method approach, including semi-structured in-depth interviews, scenario constructions and policy analysis to assess the potential tipping points in the implementation of innovative systems to manage mountain hazards. The results showed that vital variables influencing the development of new management measures are (1) the current legislation, (2) risk acceptance among authorities and the public, (3) land-use pressure, (4) the demand for innovative solutions, (5) the available technical standards and possibilities and (6) finally the policy entrepreneurship. Concluding the results, contemporary settings concerning risk management strategies will have to change in the future in order to inspire transformative governance arrangements in natural hazard management.

The science and practice offer risk management methodologies that are relevant to modern production, economic and socio-humanitarian realities. Risk management methodologies are successfully developed and implemented in Russia through the creation of scientific and professional communities. Their goal is to solve specific management tasks of identifying, analyzing, controlling, and predicting risks. Russian organizations operating internationally are the first to update foreign risk management methodologies for their managers, and now they are implementing a systematic corporate risk management approach. The world practice also offers standardization in risk management. Such a system successfully operates in the territory of the EU, which is represented by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The standards of this organization regulate not only the sphere of risk management, but also the quality management, auditing, production regulation, environmental management, and others. Most of the standards are adapted in the Russian context and are presented in the form of national standards GOST R. The paper considers risk analysis, one of the leading risk management methodologies both in Russia and abroad. We will draw analogies and differences with other modern approaches and risk management methodologies.

For individual burned drainage basins, existing hazard models and readily available data can be combined in a geographic information system to rapidly estimate debris-flow-related damages following a wildfire. The results can then be integrated into an optimization model, whose output guides allocation of emergency management funds and selection of cost-optimized debris-flow management strategies for burned areas consisting of multiple drainage basins. This paper describes methods to identify and value elements-at-risk from a range of possible post-fire debris-flow scenarios, methods to integrate these results with common debris-flow mitigation techniques and best management practices, and methods to apply this information to optimize the mitigation decisions for burned areas. Despite the potential to transform the way hazard managers approach debris-flow mitigation decisions following wildfires, natural hazard and social science management models have not previously been linked in the literature. Results from Santa Barbara (California), Great Sand Dunes National Park (Colorado), and Colfax/Las Animas Counties (Colorado, New Mexico) study sites indicate that optimization modeling can be used to select natural hazard management methods whose benefit for mitigation of post-fire debris flows can easily outweigh the cost of implementation.

Forests in mountainous areas can lower the frequency, magnitude, and intensity of gravity-driven natural hazards, such as snow avalanches, rockfall and landslides. These so-called protective forests thus constitute a primary natural protection mechanism, which can be complemented by technical protective measures against natural hazards. Their protective effect depends on several factors, including forest structure and management, as well as site characteristics and hazard types.With ongoing climate change, forests are increasingly exposed to stressors and natural disturbances. Environmental stressors create unfavourable conditions that can impair the physiology of trees. In contrast, natural disturbances are discrete events that cause tree mortality leading to a sudden change in the forest structure. Stressors and disturbances can be biotic, such as fungi or insects, or abiotic, such as drought or storms. For example, drought can act as a stressor affecting tree health, or as a disturbance causing tree death. Strong winds can put stress on trees, but they can also cause windthrow, where trees are uprooted or broken. Both phenomena lower forests’ resistance to future stressors and disturbances, as well as their capacity to recover from them.Originating from climate research, compound events are commonly defined as situations where several climatic drivers or hazards co-occur, creating an increased risk to society or the environment. The impacts of compound events across spatial and temporal scales can be significantly greater than the sum of individual drivers or hazards alone. In this study, we transferred this concept to protective forests. Compound events in protective forests are defined as multiple, spatially and/or temporally, interacting climate-induced stressors and disturbances. These events lead to changes in forest structure and composition, which negatively impact the protective effect of forests against natural hazards and create compound risk for people and infrastructure. For example, windthrow and bark beetle infestations can cause large forest openings that create potential release areas for snow avalanches.Compound risks pose novel challenges for pre- and post-disturbance protective forest and natural hazard management. Due to the high level of uncertainty and complexity involved, it is necessary to develop a shared understanding of compound risk. There is also a need to quantitatively assess compound risks to enable the implementation of effective strategies to address and mitigate them.Based on a systematic literature review, we synthesized existing knowledge to develop a definition of compound risk resulting from compound events in protective forests. To assess compound risk for protective forest and natural hazard management, we proposed a methodological framework based on adaptive pathways. Adaptive pathways are a decision-focused approach in climate adaptation research and planning, allowing performance-threshold oriented decision-making under uncertainties. We applied this approach in two case studies and developed scenarios that included a variety of uncertainties regarding compounding stressors and disturbances in forests as well as regarding natural hazards. The method allows the consideration of different forest and natural hazard management strategies for risk-based interventions.

Methods and techniques for the identification, monitoring and management of natural hazards in high mountain areas are enumerated and described. A case study from the western Himalayan Kullu District in Himachal Pradesh, India is used to illustrate some of the methods. Research on the general topic has been conducted over three decades and that in the Kullu District has been carried out since 1994. Early methods of hazards identification in high mountain areas involved intensive and lengthy fieldwork and mapping with primary reliance on interpretation of landforms, sediments and vegetation thought to be indicative of slope failures, rock falls, debris flows, floods and accelerated soil surface erosion. Augmented by the use of airphotos and ad hoc observations of specific events over time, these methods resulted in the gradual accumulation of information on hazardous sites and the beginnings of a chronology of occurrences in an area. The use of historical methods applied to written and photographic material, often held in archives and libraries, further improved the resolution of hazards information. In the past two decades, both the need for, and the ability to, accurately identify potential hazards have increased. The need for accurate information and monitoring comes about as a result of rapid growth in population, settlements, transportation infrastructure and intensified land uses and, therefore, risk and vulnerability in mountain areas. Ability has improved as the traditional methods of gathering and manipulating data have been supplemented by the use of remote sensing, automated terrain modeling, global positioning systems and geographical information systems. This paper focuses on the development and application of the latter methods and techniques to characterize and monitor hazards in high mountain areas.

In the marine industry although there has been significant growth towards safety, security and risk assessments or risk-based strategies such as marine insurance and regulations to avoid the risks of damage to properties and the environment or the prospect of premature death caused by accidents etc, the moves toward managing the risks which are linked directly to the business functions and decision making processes have been very slow. Furthermore in the marine industry most perceptions, methodologies and frameworks of dealing with hazards, risks, safety and security issues are for their assessment rather than their management. This trend reveals the fact that in different marine industry sectors such as logistics and shipping there is a lack of coherent risk management framework or methodology from which to understand the risk-based decisions especially for the purpose of design, construction, operation, management and even decommissioning of the marine related applications. On the other hand risk management is not yet viewed holistically in the marine industry in order to, for example, assign a right person, i.e. risk manager, who can act as a coordinator and advisor with responsibilities that are only specific to risk management. As a result this paper, by examining the present physical borders and risk-based activities in the marine industry, aims to propose an appropriate risk management methodology in addition to the emergent role of risk managers which will enable the industry users initially to become familiar with the concept of risk management at its holistic level. In the later stages this eventually can lead to development of risk management capabilities at an exclusive level and its integration into the marine industry functions in future.

The consequences of natural hazards are frequently estimated by the direct cost of recovering damaged infrastructure and the indirect costs to road users, economic activities, and impacts on society. Road networks are crucial in economic systems, logistic chain continuity, accessibility, mobility, and the evacuation of population during and after extreme events. Risk management systems (RMS) are used to estimate the potential consequences of natural events and to assess strategies for risk reduction. These commonly assess hazards, assets exposure, economic losses, and risk mitigation actions, among others. The general framework of RMS can be adapted to different scenarios. Still, local characteristics, such as the types of hazards and physical assets, cannot always be directly adopted from these systems. This study discusses the development of SIGeR-RV, an RMS developed in Chile for road networks exposed to multiple natural hazards. The RMS was implemented in a web-based geographic information system platform able to display hazard maps, quantify risk levels, prioritize mitigation strategies, and estimate direct and indirect costs and social vulnerability. The content and various capacities of the system are detailed, following the steps marked in its framework. This first version of SIGeR-RV considers seismic hazard, volcanic lahars, and hydro-meteorological hazards that affect road platforms, bridges, tunnels, and cut slopes. The system currently serves as a tool for the Ministry of Public Works of Chile and other decision makers to estimate budget requirements for increasing resilience of the road network, identifying vulnerable road segments, and assessing the socioeconomical impacts of risk reduction.

Aims: To profile banana farmers in Kerala across demographic, economic, social, technical, physical, and psychological domains and assess how these determinants shape natural hazard management. Study Design: Ex-post facto research design Place and Duration of Study: Palakkad, Malappuram, and Wayanad districts of Kerala, India, from March 2024 to February 2025. Methodology: A multistage random sampling technique was used to select 300 banana farmers and 30 agricultural facilitators, totalling 330 respondents. Data were collected using a pre-tested structured interview schedule. Determinants were categorised into six dimensions: demographic, economic, social, technical, physical, and psychological. Primary data were supplemented with secondary sources including agricultural statistics and hazard records. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations) in Stata. Results: Most banana farmers were aged (57%) and male, with long farming experience but limited youth involvement. Economic assessment revealed predominance of low annual incomes (68%), marginal landholdings, and high tenancy, with significant gaps in credit utilisation and insurance enrolment. Social factors showed weak extension contact,low training exposure, and poor institutional participation. Physical determinants highlighted reliance on single irrigation sources, poor digital access, and inadequate road connectivity in parts of Kerala. Technical determinants indicated high access to weather forecasts but limited electricity and mechanisation. Psychological analysis revealed medium levels of scientific temperament, risk orientation, and innovativeness, but medium prevalence of stress (75%) and depression (96%) across districts. Conclusion: The results revealed the systemic vulnerabilities in Kerala’s banana sector, shaped by socio-economic fragility and recurring natural hazards. Strengthening hazard management requires integrating economic support (credit, insurance, subsidies), technical services, infrastructure investment, social networks and support along with mental health interventions into farmer-oriented programmes and policy frameworks. Tailored natural hazard management frameworks focusing on proactive than reactive measures can build resilience among banana growers.

Task. Issues devoted to the delimitation of methods and procedures of related scientific areas: risk management, economic security, management and risk management are studied and researched by many authors. This gives rise to thoughts about a single basic basis for the listed scientific movements. So, the author, in order to avoid constant repetition of listing the scientific directions under consideration in the article, calls them directions, economic categories, etc., but the problem raised by the author of the article is the differentiation of the main elements, in particular methods, procedures, goals, objectives, principles between the studied categories, namely risk management, economic security, management and risk management. The purpose of the article is to systematize the listed elements and consider their duplication in the scientific areas under consideration. Model. The author systematizes, on the basis of those reviewed by modern economists and analysts, as well as classic scientific works, the basic elements of risk management, economic security, management and risk management. An attempt was made to find an answer to the question «are there specific developed methods and techniques for risk management of an organization that would distinguish it from the risk management system and other scientific areas?» Conclusions. Economic categories: risk management, economic security, management and risk management are considered as a single process in economic research, and therefore economists do not have a clear opinion and understanding of the differences between these categories. Practical significance. A comparative analysis of the essence of the main elements of risk management, economic security, management and risk management allows us to determine the most appropriate methods and procedures for the practical application of risk management in organizations. Allows you to develop an understanding of the implementation of risk management principles in organizations to achieve their goals. Originality. The list of goals, objectives, procedures and principles of risk management, economic security, management and risk management has been clarified, expanded and systematized.

Disaster and natural hazard governance has become a significant policy and legislative focus in South Africa since the early 1990s. Born out of necessity from a dysfunctional apartheid system, the new emphasis on disaster risk reduction in the democratic dispensation also ushered in a new era in the management of natural hazards and their associated risks and vulnerabilities. Widely cited as an international best practice in policy and law development, South Africa has led the way in natural hazard governance in sub-Sahara Africa as well as in much of the developing world. Various practices in natural hazard governance in South Africa are alluded to. Particular attention is given to the disaster risks of the country as well as to the various natural hazards that drive this risk profile. Statutory and legislative aspects are discussed through a multisectoral approach, and by citing a number of case studies, we show the application of natural hazard governance in South Africa. Certain remaining challenges are highlighted that are faced by the South Africa government such as a lack of political will at the local government level, deficits in risk governance, difficulties in resource allocation, a lack of intergovernmental relations, and a need for enhanced community participation, ownership, and decision making.

Abstract. This comment is meant to shed some light on the use of so-called "risk aversion functions" in the management of flood risks and other natural hazards as recently proposed in this journal (Merz et al., 2009). In particular, I resume the discussion as to whether the relative damage is a suitable indicator of risk aversion and lay out why the use of this indicator may lead to inefficient decisions upon flood mitigation measures.

Over the last years, in response to the increasing complexity and demand of clinical trials, there has been a growing concern with the application of efficient risk management methodologies. The main objective of this work is to assess the current level of implementation of risk management activities by clinical trials sites' teams and identify points of improvement. A cross-sectional study was conducted through an original, non-validated questionnaire created to assess the risk management practices at Portuguese clinical trial sites. The web-based survey was sent by e-mail to the clinical trial sites identified, and it was available for one month. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize the findings. In total, 46 clinical trial sites accepted to participate in this study. The surveys' answers showed that although 57.0% of sites reported the use of a systematic risk management tool, only nine sites (19.6%) described a standard tool or document that captured systematically the analysis of risks at the site level. Most of the sites (87.0%) showed willing to use a risk management tool specifically tailored for their operational needs, with the lack of knowledge about risk management being the main reason against its implementation. This work indicates that the surveyed clinical trial sites generally recognize the importance of risk management methodologies as an opportunity to anticipate difficulties in the trial conduct and optimize the use of sites' resources. However, mainly due to lack of experience with risk management methodologies, sites are not currently implementing these strategies in the management of their trial-related operations. The development of a risk management tool for sites can be useful in this context.