Development of a risk assessment program for chemical terrorism

Abstract

The study focuses on assessing the security risk of the terrorism in the chemical industry. This research modifies conventional risk assessment methods for including terrorism and sabotage scenarios. The objective of this risk assessment is to identify security hazards, threats and vulnerabilities facing each target facility, and to find the adequate countermeasures to protect the public, workers, national interest, environment, and companies. This study results in implementing software to analyze the possibility of terrorism and sabotage. This program includes five steps: asset characterization, threat assessment, vulnerability analysis, risk assessment and new countermeasures. It is a systematic, risk-based approach in which risk is a function of the severity of consequences of an undesired event, the likelihood of adversary attack, and the likelihood of adversary success in causing the undesired event. The reliability of this method is verified by the dock zone case. This study suggests an effective approach to chemical terrorism response management.