Risk of Vessel Accidents and Spills in the Aleutian Islands. Designing a Comprehensive Risk Assessment; Special rept

摘要

Risk assessment is a systematic approach used to evaluate the level of safety of a complex system or operation and to recommend appropriate safety improvement measures. It is an established engineering discipline with application in many, varied industrial enterprises for which safety is a paramount concern, such as nuclear reactors, large chemical plants, and the airline industry. Risk assessment is also widely used in the marine industry by government and private authorities to help manage safe shipping operations. Assessing risk involves addressing three key questions: What can go wrong. How likely is it. and What are the impacts. These questions are organized systematically into discrete steps that involve identifying hazards (or creating risk scenarios), determining the likelihood of their occurrence, and identifying their consequences. The present study applies such classic fundamentals of risk assessment to the question of how to minimize vessel accidents and spills in the Aleutian Islands and recommends an appropriate framework for conducting a comprehensive risk assessment for such events.