In recent decades, from television programs, news and the press, we have become more and more aware of the frequent disasters: car accidents, cases of wrecks on railways, fires and malfunctions of aircraft (helicopters), as well as motor ships. Does this mean that living in the world is becoming increasingly difficult, and progress is being replaced by regression? Developing in line with progress, do we face growing risk? Is it surmountable and how to deal with it?
Natural hazards
Natural environmental and technological risks have always been. They have objective reasons and are the result of evolution. We can note that natural hazards include: earthquakes in unstable zones, oceanic tsunamis in the southern seas, eruptions of ash-lava volcanoes, severe hurricanes and tornadoes. Hazards such as tornadoes, mountain villages and avalanches, blizzards and blizzards raging on the plains, river floods and floods, flooding vast spaces, and riot of fire - fires also appear. In addition, the Earth is also in danger from outer space: these are asteroids falling to Earth, fragments from explosions of space rockets and stations that surrounded the planet with a solid "Dyson sphere", etc. Tropical storms and floods from tsunamis are also major natural disasters. vast droughts raging on the mainland and changing the course of history. Disasters of this type as a percentage are distributed as follows: respectively, 33%, then 30%, 15% and 11% of the total upper level of disasters. For other types of disasters, only 11% will remain.
Statistical data
There is no place on the planet where there are no major disasters. The greatest number of them falls on the eastern part of the Eurasian continent (39% of the total number of disasters that happened on Earth), then both America (25%), then Europe (14%) and Africa (13%) go down. In Oceania, 10% remains.
A paradox of modern civilization arises: with the era of the scientific and technological revolution, life improves, average life expectancy grows, the world becomes safer, but the number of major natural technological accidents and disasters grows.
The results of the World Conference (Yokohama, 1994) determined that the damage from highly dangerous natural manifestations increases by six percent each year.
In the history of mankind, major, planetary disasters - environmental, natural, and man-made - have occurred several times.
At the dawn of the development of man and society, the first ecological and technological catastrophe occurred during the transition from a hunting lifestyle and gathering to settled agriculture. Here the cause of the disaster was not the mind, but the standards and skills of "cave" thinking. The mind of that person differed little from the modern one. They were hindered by accumulated experience, local natural and social conditions, and they could not predict the future. Local environmental crises have also occurred more than once: Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, ancient India ...
What it is?
The natural and technological risks of strategic importance are the emergence and decline of civilizations (states), the scientific and technological revolution that has swept the whole Earth. As well as the environmental (natural-technological) crisis that is being realized before our eyes, coupled with global warming (according to other sources - cooling).
Causes of occurrence
The population in cities is growing very rapidly. Since 1970, the number of people on Earth has increased by 1.7% per year, and in cities by 4%. The percentage of migrants in cities increased, they developed dangerous places for living: dumps, slopes of urban ravines, floodplains of unclean rivers, coastal sparsely populated areas and routes of heating lines, cellars. The situation is complicated by the lack of the necessary engineering infrastructure in new territories and on unfinished construction projects of buildings and houses that have not undergone environmental and technological expertise. All this indicates that cities are at the center of natural disasters. Hence the troubles of people, acquiring mass character.
The World Conference held in May 1994 in Yokohama (Japan) adopted a declaration stating that the reduction of damage from natural hazards should be a priority in the national strategy for sustainable development. Such a development strategy (strategy to combat natural hazards) should be based on forecasting and timely warning of the population.
Definition of the term
Technogenic risk is a general indicator of the functional work of all elements of the system in the technosphere. It characterizes the possibility of implementing hazards and disasters when using machines and mechanisms. It is determined through the indicator of hazardous effects on objects and living creatures. In theory, it is customary to denote: technogenic risk - Rt, individual risk - Ri, social risk - Rc. Individual and social risks in the zones of a hazardous (technological-ecological) facility depend on the value of the Rt facility. As you move away from the object, the danger decreases.
Classification
Technogenic risks are usually divided into internal and external. Internal risks include:
- internal technical damage or industrial accidents (occurring groundwater, etc.);
- internal fires (fire tornadoes) and industrial explosions.
External risks include:
- natural impacts associated with crisis phenomena in the environment;
- external hurricane fires and explosions at industrial facilities;
- cases of acts of terrorism with social consequences;
- offensive operations and military operations using the latest weapons.
Risk classes by scale
Due to differences in the types of consequences, natural-technological risks can be divided into acceptable classes:
- planetary man-made disasters;
- earthly global disasters;
- large-scale national and regional disasters;
- local local and object accidents.
We can emphasize that planetary catastrophes arise as a result of a collision with large asteroids from the consequences of the “nuclear winter”. Disasters of planetary significance also arise due to changes in the poles of the Earth, glaciations of vast territories, environmental shocks and other influences.
Global risks include the dangers posed by nuclear reactors during their explosions; from nuclear facilities for military and other purposes; from natural earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, from tsunamis flooding continents, from hurricanes, etc. The repetition frequency is 30-40 years.
We will unite national and regional dangers in one row: the causes of their occurrence (and consequences from them) are the same. These are the strongest earthquakes, floods and forest (steppe) fires. Accidents on trunk pipelines pose an additional risk to transport and power lines. Threats in transporting large numbers of people and dangerous goods are important in the regions.
Local local and facility accidents are of great importance, especially for cities and surrounding areas. Such phenomena as the collapse of buildings, fires and explosions in production and in civil engineering, emissions of radioactive and toxic substances noticeably affect the health and lives of people.
So, considering the issue of technical systems and technological risks, we can summarize that when you are in the vehicle’s operating areas, the person is exposed to the effect, which is determined by the vehicle’s properties and the length of stay in the danger zone. In this regard, the problem of the reliability of systems and technological equipment becomes more and more urgent.
Man-made risks are classified:
- by type of impact: on chemical, radiation, biological and transport, as well as natural disasters;
- according to the degree of damage: risk of human injury, level of risk of death of an individual, expected risk of material damage, risk of damage to the environment, other integral (probabilistic) risks.
What is analysis for?
Anthropogenic risk analysis is the process of recognizing hazards and assessing future accidents at production facilities, property, or assessing environmental damage. It is also an analysis of hazard recognition and risk assessment for all groups of people and the individual, property and the environment. The degree of risk shows an upper estimate of the probability of a dangerous event with a negative result and possible loss. Risk assessment involves the analysis of its frequency, analysis of the consequences of TS and their integral combination.
So, technogenic environmental risks generally express:
- the likelihood of environmental disasters resulting from economic activity;
- likelihood of environmental disasters caused by vehicle accidents.
Environmental risks are usually characterized by type:
- social and environmental risk;
- environmental and economic risk;
- technical and individual risk.
Risk Assessment Procedure
Assessment of technological risks is carried out according to a procedure including:
- Creation of an ecological-geographical database of the region.
- Inventory of hazardous industrial facilities in the region and types of economic activity.
- Assessment of quantitative characteristics for the environment (OS) and the health of the entire population in the region.
- Analysis of the region’s infrastructure and the organization of security systems, also in cases of emergencies.
- Complete development and justification of the vector of strategies and optimal action plans.
- Formulation of total management strategies and development of common operational action plans.
Ways to reduce risk
Man-made risk reduction is based on such advanced methods as:
- Construction of systems of protection against technological (environmental) accidents and disasters.
- General analysis and monitoring of technical systems and operators (personnel) of a technical object (TO).
- The use of possible means for the prevention and elimination of emergency situations (ES) in production.
Environmental impact
The consequences of man-made risks in nature are manifested in the pollution of water bodies, soils, the atmosphere and drinking water. The main drinking water resources include groundwater. The main polluting factors are:
- mineral fertilizers and pesticides;
- cesspools (sedimentation tanks) at agricultural enterprises;
- general sewage systems;
- uncontrolled landfills and abandoned quarries;
- worn pipelines located underground;
- industrial waste and emissions and other factors.
Household and construction waste, as well as food waste, can be sources of disease.