Nan Kjellberg Cecilia Sandström
Abstract
This article is an executive summary of a Master Thesis in Risk Management and Safety Engineering.
The purpose of the project has been to investigate how environmental risks should be incorporated into the municipal management of accidents in Sweden, and to evaluate the potential use of the program Riskera in the municipal management of environmental risks associated with accidents.
Riskera is a tool based on Geographic Information System (GIS), which has been developed by the Swedish Rescue Services Agency (SRSA).
Literature studies, interviews and observations have resulted in a number of recommendations, instructions and key factors regarding how to incorporate environmental risks into the municipal management of accidents. One very important factor is a learning organisation.
Introduction
Accidents with consequences for different parts of society occur on a daily basis in Sweden. These consequences can affect different values and according to the Civil Protection Act (2003:778), which was implemented on the 1st of January 2004, society has to prevent and minimise damage on people, property and the environment.
Traditionally, environmental damage has not been given much attention. This is now changing as accidents have shown to have potentially very large environmental consequences, which cannot be neglected. Pollution of the environment also has great impact on human health.
To enable a decrease in the number of accidents that occur, as well as preparing to cope with the consequences of the accidents, society has to work systematically with risk management and civil protection. Accidental risks have to be identified,
analysed and evaluated, and actions, contributing to improvement of society’s protection against accidents, have to be taken.
Civil protection also includes effective management of accidents that do occur in spite of preventive actions, see figure 1.
Environmental risks have to be incorporated into both accident risk management and civil protection in the municipalities. Management of accidents is in Sweden mainly performed at local level, which makes the municipality an important actor in this process. Moreover, the municipalities often have to deal with the consequences of accidents, and hence have strong incentives to work with these issues.
SRSA has developed a tool, in order to facilitate the daily risk management work of the Swedish municipalities. The program is called Riskera and is based on Geographic Information System (GIS). At present the program is only used by a limited number of municipalities, but the intention of the SRSA is to spread it to a considerably larger number of users.
The purpose of this project has been twofold:
to investigate how environmental risks should be incorporated into the municipal management of accidents, and to evaluate the potential use of the GIS-based program Riskera, developed by the SRSA, in this work. Theory, legislation, actors and aids/tools of relevance for the purpose of the project have been studied in literature, and through interviews and observations. In addition to these studies, information has also been acquired concerning Canada’s work with environmental emergencies, in order to add another perspective to the analysis.
Results
The project has resulted in a number of recommendations and instructions regarding how to incorporate environmental risks into the municipal accident management. These have been structured on the basis of a methodology combining risk management with civil protection, see figure 1.
It is also suggested which actor should be responsible for carrying out these recommend-dations and instructions. The majority of these actors are municipal ones, but also some national authorities are referred to. This structured advice
is intended to support and inspire the important actors, such as the Municipal Environmental Agency and the Municipal Rescue Agency, in their daily activities.
Such recommendations are for example to perform first response exercises with more actors than solely the Municipal Rescue Agency and to
involve the Municipal Environmental Agency in the process of auditing corporations’ risk analyses in situations concerning for example their establishment, in order to ensure a sufficient coverage of environmental risks.
More recommendations are presented in the report.
Figure 1, Methodology for management of accidents combining risk management (vertically) and civil protection (horizontally).
Accident Risk analysis
Risk evaluation
Risk reduction/control
• Probability-reducing actions:
1. Prevention of accidents
• Consequence-reducing actions:
2. Damage-reducing actions
3. Response preparedness
4. Accident response 5. Post-accident actions Risk
management
Civil protection
Time
Identifiering av systemsvgheter för ökad driftsäkerhet på Oskarshamns kärnkraftverk
Key factors
Apart from specific recommendations and instructions some key factors have been identified as being vital for acquiring good municipal management of environmental risks associated with accidents.
A learning organisation
A good municipal organisational learning is a very important factor to assure an adequate safeguard of knowledge and experiences in the municipality. Knowledge about many different aspects is required to integrate environmental risks into the municipal management of accidents. Without safeguarding the knowledge within the municipality, the result of the risk management process is at best inefficient, and at
worst hazardous.
An efficient organisation of the municipal management of accidents
Hand in hand with improving the municipal organisational learning with respect to accident management goes an efficient organisation of the actors involved. Societal risks are complex and reliable management of these requires the participation of a large number of actors. A risk management function at a municipal management level, such as a safety coordinator or a safety group, is of great significance for all these aspects. This is also of vital importance for assuring that all the important aspects of accident management in the municipality are taken into account.
Awareness and knowledge among involved actors
Another important factor is the awareness and knowledge among the actors. For example educating and training commanders in charge of the first response on environmental issues is of vital importance. Educating and training personnel at the Municipal Environmental Agency on management of accidents is also very important.
Different basic data for decision-making, such as programs, tools and databases, must be used at several occasions when the decision-maker’s knowledge is insufficient.
Riskera as a tool in the municipal management of environmental risks associated with accidents The program Riskera is an example of a tool that can be used by decision-makers to acquire additional information before making a decision, mainly in risk management on a municipal management level. It is mainly a tool for assembling, presenting and analysing information covering the entire municipality. An actor at a central level in the municipality, for example a safety coordinator, should perform this task, if the environmental risks are to be taken into account.
Currently the program is distributed as a part of the database RIB (The Swedish Rescue Services Information Bank), which is only used by the Municipal Rescue Agencies, and therefore it does not today reach the functions that could use it in the way it is supposed to be used. For Riskera to function as a tool for managing environmental risks, it is also very important that environmental sensitivity is included in the features of the program.