Natural hazards, such as earthquakes, floods or storms, can trigger the release of toxic substances, fires and explosions when impacting industrial installations that process, store or transport hazardous materials. This type of event is called Natech (natural hazard triggered technological) accident. With climate change affecting the intensity and frequency of some natural events, Natech risk has become a topic of concern for disaster risk management at local, national and international levels.

Following a number of important accidents, awareness of Natech risk has increased in the European Union, and the risk has been acknowledged in legal acts on chemical accident prevention. In 2012, an amendment of the EU Seveso Directive on the control of major accident hazards involving dangerous substances explicitly introduced Natech risk as an issue of concern that is required to be addressed.

However, to date the implementation of effective Natech risk management has been hampered by a general lack of guidance on how to conduct Natech risk assessment. In order to facilitate compliance with the requirements of the Seveso III Directive or similar legislation, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) has released a document that provides technical guidance on Natech risk management for operators of hazardous installations and national authorities. It outlines the necessary steps in the Natech risk management process and discusses the main challenges that hamper its proper implementation. While emphasising the identification and modelling of specific scenarios for Natech risk assessment, the document also provides solutions for addressing existing gaps in Natech risk assessment and the control of Natech risk.

Although this guidance focuses on Seveso requirements, the Natech risk management principles discussed herein can also be adopted in other industry sectors that handle hazardous materials.