GIS‐Based Integration of Social Vulnerability and Level 3 Probabilistic Risk Assessment to Advance Emergency Preparedness, Planning, and Response for Severe Nuclear Power Plant Accidents

Abstract

In the nuclear power industry, Level 3 probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) is used to estimate damage to public health and the environment if a severe accident leads to large radiological release. Current Level 3 PRA does not have an explicit inclusion of social factors and, therefore, it is not possible to perform importance ranking of social factors for risk‐informing emergency preparedness, planning, and response (EPPR). This article offers a methodology for adapting the concept of social vulnerability, commonly used in natural hazard research, in the context of a severe nuclear power plant accident. The methodology has four steps: (1) calculating a hazard‐independent social vulnerability index for the local population; (2) developing a location‐specific representation of the maximum radiological hazard estimated from current Level 3 PRA, in a geographic information system (GIS) environment; (3) developing a GIS‐based socio‐technical risk map by combining the social vulnerability index and the location‐specific radiological hazard; and (4) conducting a risk importance measure analysis to rank the criticality of social factors based on their contribution to the socio‐technical risk. The methodology is applied using results from the 2012 Surry Power Station state‐of‐the‐art reactor consequence analysis. A radiological hazard model is generated from MELCOR accident consequence code system, translated into a GIS environment, and combined with the Center for Disease Control social vulnerability index (SVI). This research creates an opportunity to explicitly consider and rank the criticality of location‐specific SVI themes based on their influence on risk, providing input for EPPR.

Spatial Industrial Accident Exposure and Social Vulnerability Assessment of Hazardous Material Sites, Chemical Parks, and Nuclear Power Plants in Germany

“…It could be assumed that people would react to the risk of potentially hazardous facilities in their neighborhood, resulting in poorer populations around such sites. Such patterns have been observed in the United States with respect to NPP (Kyne and Harris 2015;Pence et al 2019). In Bhopal, India, the poor segment of society, the local workforce, was mainly affected (Dhara and Dhara 2002).…”

“…Social vulnerability assessments analyze distinct social vulnerability classes-age, gender, income, and other factors-and can be combined with environmental vulnerability and hazard control information (Radosavljević et al 2018). Some existing social vulnerability indicators and indices developed in natural hazard contexts are applied to industrial risks, especially nuclear power plants (NPP) (Kyne and Harris 2015;Pence et al 2019). Risk, as a combination of hazard exposure and vulnerability, is understood as information for decision makers to prioritize, for example, in emergency management (Birkmann 2013).…”

An integrated risk assessment method for cross-regional mega construction projects

“…Due to the complex interaction between risk factors, more and more studies have taken this feature into account (Chen et al, 2022b;Zhang et al, 2021). To solve the problem of variable risks and their complex relationships from a system perspective, vulnerability theory is gradually introduced into risk management (Mottahedi et al, 2021;Kostyuchenko et al, 2015;Pence et al, 2019;Wu et al, 2019;Elbashbishy et al, 2022). According to the study of Birch and McEvoy (1992), the risk was triggered by the interaction between threat and vulnerability.…”

“…Threats and vulnerabilities of the system have gradually gained the attention of researchers on risk management during the past decades (Fidan et al. , 2011; Pence et al. , 2019; Mottahedi et al.…”

“…Threats and vulnerabilities of the system have gradually gained the attention of researchers on risk management during the past decades (Fidan et al, 2011;Pence et al, 2019;Mottahedi et al, 2021). From this perspective, risk is defined as the superposition of external threats and inherent vulnerabilities, or the result of interaction between hazard sources and systemic fragility (Isaza-Restrepo et al, 2016;Deng and Low, 2014;Haimes, 2006).…”