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Roadmap for incorporating risk as a basis of performance objectives in building regulation
Abstract
It has been suggested that future generations of building regulation can become more risk-informed and performance based, and that this can be best facilitated through viewing the building regulatory system as a socio-technical system (STS). A central component of the STS approach to building regulation is that government (regulators) and the market understand and agree the risk measure(s) that have and will be used to define the tolerable level of risks that are addressed through building regulation, the specific risk criteria that will be used in the evaluation of the risks for regulation and design, and the analysis and design approaches that will be used to demonstrate that building design solutions can be verified as meeting the risk criteria and measures. To support these efforts, a risk characterization roadmap is presented as guidance for building regulators embarking on efforts to use risk as a basis for building performance requirements. While the roadmap has been designed to address all health and safety hazards considered within building regulations, characterization of fire risk is used as an example throughout.
... These have become essential within the performance-based design process. In most cases to describe the necessary functional and operative requirements [4]. ...
... According to Ref. [41], the quality of safety measures (barriers) is determined by seven attributes which all together give an indication of the trustworthiness. It is about (1) effectiveness: the ability of a barrier to perform its necessary function correctly; (2) reliability: the likelihood that a barrier will be able to perform its necessary function, given the aforementioned conditions, for a specified period of time; (3) availability: the chance that a barrier will function at any point in time; (4) costs: the costs of keeping the barrier functional, reliable and available; (5) robustness: the ability to continue to function in the event of (extreme) environmental influences such as an incident; (6) response time: the time from activation of the barrier to the execution of the intended function; and finally (7) the "Trigger": the event or condition that activates the barrier. ...
In the built environment, often too much focus is put on compliance instead of seeking the optimal fire-safety solution for the building. Because of a lack of tangible incentives for building owners, the benefits of implementing fire safety measures and their societal contribution are often not recognized and therefore, not considered. By means of a literature review and a survey, we have indicated necessary fire-safety related attributes and tool features and analyzed the currently available fire risk assessment tools. This study shows that a limited number of these tools can provide a partial fire risk analysis of a building. A total of 26 tools were found. No tools were found that included all the identified fire consequence-related attributes to ensure fire-safe buildings. However, we did identify 11 tools that have the potential to assess between 32 % and 52 % of the found attributes of building fire safety. To stimulate the development of such tools, this paper provides 12 factors by which to assess fire risk assessment tools – quantifying the overall ‘quality’ of the assessment tool – which can incentivize industry to refine the existing ones with enhanced predictability of the potential consequences of fire incidents.
... F-N curve is a complementary cumulative distribution plot curve, the frequency (F) of events which causes at least N fatalities (N) on log scales. Meacham [27] has also already described ideas for risk-optimized building regulations as a social task, but with a global approach. ...
... This paper is a response to the development of a performance-based code for the European Union together with CEN. We realize that the data set is small, but it complements the approach taken by Meacham et al. [27], now with a more specific means of linking the theory with the safety objectives. ...
In Germany, building codes relating to fire safety are mainly prescriptive nature. Therefore, fire safety engineering is based on a combination of expert judgment and reverse engineering of prescriptive rules. This necessitates to connect the given objectives with the detailed prescriptive rules—if not already described within the law or bylaw. This paper proposes a table relating the fire safety objectives of European building regulations and their German counterpart with the prescriptive model building code in Germany. In addition, a risk curve for prenormative work is also given. This represents the prescriptive regulations concerning in terms of fatalities of a level acceptable to society and emphasizes the lower degree of acceptance of multiple fatalities occurring in a single incident. This residual risk limit represents the opinion of German firefighting associations. Data taken from the London area supports the suggested slope rate, as the level of safety in Britain is similar to that in Germany. The table of prescriptive building regulations and their corresponding objectives aids everyday planning decisions in the context of determining adequate compensation without missing out any essential aspects, such as firefighting and firefighter safety. The proposed table forms the basis of the current discussion of a European model performance-based model building code (PBC) within the European Committee for Standardization CEN. Moreover, the risk curve is the first to be discussed in Germany that takes into consideration the societal aspect. It forms an appropriate basis for performing fire safety risk calculations based on fault tree analysis or Bayes nets. The CEN working group for fire safety engineering discusses both aspects of the current development of a European, performance-based fire safety code. It is presented here for the first time.
... In the field of fire safety engineering, it is important to maintain a practical approach to preventing multiple fatalities at once. The actual level of safety is currently a topic of discussion [22], the slope rate is accepted. This approach by an f/n-curve to risk management is therefore supported by data in Europe and even in China, not just in Germany. ...
The article discusses the difference between the socially acceptable level of fire safety for people and the protection of property according to German and EU legislation. This level of safety is compared with the methodology of the IEC 62305-2 risk management standard for lightning protection. The significance of rising construction costs and the emphasis on planning costs for unnecessary risk calculations. We discuss lightning protection in terms of personal and property safety, with a focus on risk-based approaches from fire safety engineering. The ongoing debate in Germany on lightning protection standards and their impact on building safety and cost-effectiveness will be examined. In addition, legal aspects in Germany and the EU related to lightning protection are explained. An outlook on a new approach to lightning protection risk calculations is given.
... Nightclubs, for example, continue to experience large life loss fires. However, dwelling fires appear to be more 'accepted' or 'tolerated' by society, particularly when losses are low (e.g., 1-2 deaths per incident), rising only to a level of societal concern when larger numbers of people are impacted [4]. The fire safety of existing buildings challenge becomes more complicated by such factors as: non-regulatory (voluntary) modifications, such as energy retrofits and photovoltaic systems (PVS) or energy storage systems (ESS) installations; evolving and changing internal fire loads; age and maintenance condition of the building; illegal reuse or repurposing of the building, and, occupant socioeconomic and cultural factors [5]. ...
... Li et al. (2021b) analyzed the methods of expected utility theory, mean variance, mean semideviation, value-at-risk, conditional value-at-risk, and loss aversion in risk management decision-making and found that their optimal solution sets were equivalent. Meacham et al. (2021) proposed a risk standard roadmap as a fundamental guide for construction risk management. Larraz and San-Martin (2021) analyzed the impact of reservoir management on rural depopulation in central Spain and revealed the direct relationship between reservoir management that enables recreational uses with its consequent socioeconomic development and the maintenance of the population in the territory. ...
While reservoir dams have created significant social and economic benefits, dam failure caused by various reasons bring about great threats to the downstream areas. Many countries determine management investment according to the risk level of reservoir dams and the “as low as reasonably practicable” (ALARP) principle. However, life cannot be directly quantified in currency, and the traditional “cost-benefit” method cannot be effectively applied to reservoir dam management decisions. Hence, the life quality index (LQI) was introduced and improved to solve this problem based on the targeted analysis of the parameters of the life quality index, considering the fact that the per capita GDP changes over time. Without monetary quantification of life, an annual economic investment was determined to effectively control the risk level of the reservoir dam in a certain period of time in the future to ensure people’s life safety and quality of life. The improved LQI method was applied to a small-scale reservoir in China. The results showed that (a) the annual investment in dam risk management calculated by the improved LQI method was 20.07% higher than that of the traditional LQI method; (b) the annual investment in dam management changed 24 times due to changes in warning time and public risk awareness; and (c) dam management investment should be used not only to ensure the safety of the structure but also to improve early warning capacity and public risk awareness. This study focuses on how to reasonably determine the management investment of reservoir dams when the dam risk is in the ALARP region, which can effectively promote the application of dam risk standards.
... However, policy design is never solely based on scientific assessment, which inevitably bears uncertainties and involves ingestion by and decision-making through a political system (Petak 2002). As such, effective policy design can be facilitated through an early-stage inclusion and involvement of the social, political, legal, and regulatory stakeholders in the deliberations to define the various risk limits, including acceptable/tolerable risk and transferrable risk (e.g., through insurance) (Meacham and van Straalen 2018;Meacham et al. 2021). ...
Wildfires are an essential part of a healthy ecosystem, yet the expansion of the wildland-urban interface, combined with climatic changes and other anthropogenic activities, have led to the rise of wildfire hazards in the past few decades. Managing future wildfires and their multi-dimensional impacts requires moving from traditional reactive response to deploying proactive policies, strategies, and interventional programs to reduce wildfire risk to wildland-urban interface communities. Existing risk assessment frameworks lack a unified analytical method that properly captures uncertainties and the impact of decisions across social, ecological, and technical systems, hindering effective decision-making related to risk reduction investments. In this paper, a conceptual probabilistic wildfire risk assessment framework that propagates modeling uncertainties is presented. The framework characterizes the dynamic risk through spatial probability density functions of loss, where loss can include different decision variables, such as physical, social, economic, environmental, and health impacts, depending on the stakeholder needs and jurisdiction. The proposed approach consists of a computational framework to propagate and integrate uncertainties in the fire scenarios, propagation of fire in the wildland and urban areas, damage, and loss analyses. Elements of this framework that require further research are identified, and the complexity in characterizing wildfire losses and the need for an analytical-deliberative process to include the perspectives of the spectrum of stakeholders are discussed.
... In this regard, one approach to advance PBD for fire safety is to think about how risk might be used as a basis for establishing desired/tolerable levels of safety performance. This is not a new insight [e.g., 55,58,67,95,115], but in the STS framing, it becomes a critical need. ...
The fundamental construct for performance-based design for fire safety in use today has not significantly changed since the early 1990s. While the current construct has seen some success, performance-based design for fire safety is not as broadly accepted as performance-based design approaches in other building-related engineering disciplines. To advance performance-based design for fire safety, it is proposed to move towards a sociotechnical systems approach. This means changing the starting point from a focus on fire safety objectives as a unique property of buildings, infrastructure, or operations, and considering fire safety as one of several sociotechnical objectives. It also means focusing fire safety analysis and design on system attributes which can be controlled through design, and less on variables for which control is unlikely or not possible. As part of this, consideration of fire safety systems performance should be considered in terms of a ‘fail-safe’ perspective, in which there is less focus on all possible events that could occur, and more on preventing those which could result in unacceptable performance. Evaluation of building fire safety as a sociotechnical systems problem would also need to consider the interactions of all components that contribute to safety over the lifetime of the system, including in-use safety system management and system performance over time.
... Roadmap for Incorporating Risk into Regulation (adapted fromMeacham and van Straalen, 2018) ...
It has been suggested that future generations of building regulations can become more risk-informed and performance based, and that development of the regulations and the risk bases that underpin them should occur within a socio-technical systems framework. To facilitate this, it is important for regulators and the market to understand and agree the risk measure(s) that will be used to define the risks, the specific risk criteria that will be used in the evaluation of the risks, and the analysis and design approaches that will be used to demonstrate that building design solutions can be verified as meeting the risk criteria and measures. To help facilitate movement towards this objective, a roadmap is presented, which includes guidance relative to selecting a risk measure, associated risk criteria, and appropriate means of quantifying risk and undertaking risk-informed design of buildings. BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
Fires can have a direct or indirect impact on the durability and performance of a building. Even though many methods of fire prevention and detection are used today, fires in buildings are still considered a serious threat to residents. To identify the factors that most affect the occurrence of a fire, a comprehensive analysis of past fires in buildings was carried out. As factors influencing the occurrence of fires in buildings, the features of the building design, reconstruction methods, human behavior, fire safety rules, building codes and regulations, fire extinguishing means and methods, as well as the ideas of architects and engineers about fire safety were identified. The paper attempts to lay the foundation for a better understanding of past fires and the desire to create fire-resistant buildings in the future.
The current safety situation and the conclusions of a number of strategic and conceptual works require a broader integration of the population protection system into the areas of construction management. The approaches adopted by individual countries to this matter differ greatly. In the Czech Republic, the definition of constructions to which it is necessary to apply population protection requirements has not been dealt with sufficiently. The construction technical requirements from the point of view of population protection are also not sufficiently dealt with. This article presents a new draft procedure for designating the requirements for the relevant constructions of population protection in the Czech Republic. In addition, possible external hazards affecting the constructions or their strategic importance functions were assessed. In conclusion, the general, specific, and strategic requirements for constructions are set. The procedure is applied to the conditions of the Czech Republic, but it is also applicable in other countries. The area of public protection is closely related to Industry 4.0. Ensuring the protection of the population, as well as the safety of workers, employers, and production facilities, is one of the basic preconditions for the development of the industry.
There is a trend in Europe towards increasing the quality and performance of regulations. At the same time, regulatory failure has been observed in the area of building fire safety regulation in England and elsewhere. As a result, an analysis of the appropriateness of fire safety regulations in Spain is warranted, with the objective being to assess whether a suitable level of fire safety is currently being delivered. Three basic elements must be considered in such analysis: the legal and regulatory framework, the level of fire risk/safety of buildings that is expected and the level which actually results, and a suitable method of analysis. The focus of this paper is creating a legal and regulatory framework, in particular with respect to fire safety in buildings. Components of an ”ideal” building regulatory framework to adequately control fire risk are presented, the existing building regulatory framework is summarized, and an analysis of the gaps between the ideal and the existing systems is presented. It is concluded that the gaps between the ideal and the existing framework are significant, and that the current fire safety regulations are not appropriate for assuring delivery of the intended level of fire risk mitigation.
2019/20 Australia's bushfire season (Black Summer fires) occurred during a period of record breaking temperatures and extremely low rainfall. To understand the impact of these climatic values we conducted a preliminary analysis of the 2019/20 bushfire season and compared it with the fire seasons between March 2000 and March 2020 in the states of New South Wales (NSW), Victoria, and South Australia (SA). Forest and fire management in Australia were asked to provide data on the number of fires, burned area, life and house loss, as well as weather conditions. By March 2020 Black Summer fires burnt almost 19 million hectares, destroyed over 3,000 houses, and killed 33 people. Data showed that they were unprecedented in terms of impact on all areas. A number of mega-fires occurred in NSW resulting in more burned area than in any fire season during the last 20 years. One of them was the largest recorded forest fire in Australian history. Victoria had a season with the highest number of fires, area burned, and second highest numbers of houses lost for the same period. SA had the highest number of houses lost in the last 20 years. Black Summer fires confirmed existing trends of impact categories during the last two decades for NSW and Victoria. It showed that the smoke from the bushfires may be a significant concern in the future for the global community, as it travels to other countries and continents. Based on preliminary data, it will take many years to restore the economy and infrastructure in impacted areas, and to recover animal and vegetation biodiversity.
Objectives-This report presents final 2017 data on the 10 leading causes of death in the United States by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin. Leading causes of infant, neonatal, and postneonatal death are also presented. This report supplements "Deaths: Final Data for 2017," the National Center for Health Statistics' annual report of final mortality statistics. Methods-Data in this report are based on information from all death certificates filed in the 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2017. Causes of death classified by the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) are ranked according to the number of deaths assigned to rankable causes. Cause-of-death statistics are based on the underlying cause of death. Results-In 2017, the 10 leading causes of death were, in rank order: Diseases of heart; Malignant neoplasms; Accidents (unintentional injuries); Chronic lower respiratory diseases; Cerebrovascular diseases; Alzheimer disease; Diabetes mellitus; Influenza and pneumonia; Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis; and Intentional self-harm (suicide). They accounted for 74% of all deaths occurring in the United States. Differences in the rankings are evident by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin. Leading causes of infant death for 2017 were, in rank order: Congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities; Disorders related to short gestation and low birth weight, not elsewhere classified; Newborn affected by maternal complications of pregnancy; Sudden infant death syndrome; Accidents (unintentional injuries); Newborn affected by complications of placenta, cord and membranes; Bacterial sepsis of newborn; Diseases of the circulatory system; Respiratory distress of newborn; and Neonatal hemorrhage. Important variations in the leading causes of infant death are noted for the neonatal and postneonatal periods.
This report is the result of a socio-technical system (STS) review of the English and Swedish building regulatory systems for fire safety. The project is a part of the HOLIFAS project, pertaining to fire safety of facades from a technical and regulatory perspective. The regulatory settings of England and Sweden are considered as a socio-technical system with complex interactions between institutions, actors (stakeholders) and technology. By applying the socio-technical building regulatory assessment methods, STBRSAM, the English and Swedish systems are reviewed. The application of the STBRSAM to England raised issues identified in the Hackitt review and demonstrates proof of concept for the applicability of the STBRSAM. The application of the STBRSAM to Sweden raises similar issues as identified in England. Both systems show inadequacies that may lead to unsafe buildings. The review identifies a number of inadequacies in both the English and Swedish regulatory regime. Most notably, there is a widespread lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities and lack of clear competency and accountability structures.
By adopting risk management, savings potentials can be realized in construction projects. For this reason, for project managers as well as real estate developers, a consideration of the risk management process is worthwhile. The risk management process comprises 6 process steps, which will be discussed in greater detail below. The integration of a risk management system in construction projects must be oriented to the progress of the project and permeate all areas, functions and processes of the project. In this, particular importance is attached to the risks in the personnel area, for, particularly for enterprises providing highly qualified services, specialized employees are essential for market success.
Firstd Published Online: 14 Oct 2010
In recent years there have been many disparate uses of the terms sustainability and resilience, with some framing sustainability and resilience as the same concept, and others claiming them to be entirely different and unrelated. To investigate similarities, differences, and current management frameworks for increasing sustainability and resilience, a literature review was undertaken that focused on integrated use of sustainability and resilience in an environmental management context. Sustainability was defined through the triple bottom line of environmental, social and economic system considerations. Resilience was viewed as the ability of a system to prepare for threats, absorb impacts, recover and adapt following persistent stress or a disruptive event. Three generalized management frameworks for organizing sustainability and resilience were found to dominate the literature: (1) resilience as a component of sustainability, (2) sustainability as a component of resilience, and (3) resilience and sustainability as separate objectives. Implementations of these frameworks were found to have common goals of providing benefits to people and the environment under normal and extreme operating conditions, with the best examples building on similarities and minimizing conflicts between resilience and sustainability.
Purpose
This paper aims to evaluate the quality control systems for constructions in seven countries in Europe with the purpose to trace innovative approaches and best practices that can serve as examples for other countries.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a series of research projects carried out over a number of years. The research results were updated in 2016 with a desktop research project in seven European countries. The results from this latest project form the heart of this paper. The information is organised into tables that describe and analyse the main features of the quality control systems of the countries (e.g. scope, focus and main characteristics of the procedures and quality demands on building professionals).
Findings
Several similar trends can be recognised in the quality control systems of the various European Union (EU) countries. Quality control is getting more and more privatised and the control framework is setting checks and balances throughout the construction process. Other findings are that scope and focus of the statutory control is unbalanced. Within the control processes emphasis is put on the safety aspects of complex constructions. Far fewer demands are made on the quality of the builders. Re-orientation of the building regulatory framework seems to be needed.
Research limitations/implications
The paper only focusses on European countries where private quality control is established and on selected topics. The findings are based on desktop research and not on the practical experiences of the stakeholders involved in the countries studied.
Practical implications
The paper draws some important recommendations for policymakers in the building regulatory field. It suggests both an enhancement of the effectiveness of the quality control procedure as well as the commitment of builders to comply with the regulations.
Social implications
The quality of constructions is essential for the wellbeing and safety of its users, its occupants or its visitors. This applies to the whole range of quality aspects: structural- and fire safety, health, sustainability and usability aspects. The analyses and recommendations of this paper aim to contribute to an improvement of the overall construction quality.
Originality/value
The paper makes an original contribution to the (limited) literature that is available in this field. The results can be used to situate the quality control systems of each member state within the EU, to assess the main trends, and it can be used as a guide to develop strategic choices on possible improvements in each country.
Introduction
Residential fires represent the largest category of fatal fires in Sweden. The purpose of this study was to describe the epidemiology of fatal residential fires in Sweden and to identify clusters of events.
Method
Data was collected from a database that combines information on fatal fires with data from forensic examinations and the Swedish Cause of Death-register. Mortality rates were calculated for different strata using population statistics and rescue service turnout reports. Cluster analysis was performed using multiple correspondence analysis with agglomerative hierarchical clustering.
Results
Male sex, old age, smoking, and alcohol were identified as risk factors, and the most common primary injury diagnosis was exposure to toxic gases. Compared to non-fatal fires, fatal residential fires more often originated in the bedroom, were more often caused by smoking, and were more likely to occur at night. Six clusters were identified. The first two clusters were both smoking-related, but were separated into (1) fatalities that often involved elderly people, usually female, whose clothes were ignited (17% of the sample), (2) middle-aged (45–64 years old), (often) intoxicated men, where the fire usually originated in furniture (30%). Other clusters that were identified in the analysis were related to (3) fires caused by technical fault, started in electrical installations in single houses (13%), (4) cooking appliances left on (8%), (5) events with unknown cause, room and object of origin (25%), and (6) deliberately set fires (7%).
Conclusions
Fatal residential fires were unevenly distributed in the Swedish population. To further reduce the incidence of fire mortality, specialized prevention efforts that focus on the different needs of each cluster are required.
Practical applications
Cooperation between various societal functions, e.g. rescue services, elderly care, psychiatric clinics and other social services, with an application of both human and technological interventions, should reduce residential fire mortality in Sweden.
Building regulatory agencies worldwide are grappling with how to define and implement appropriate mandatory and voluntary measures for new and existing buildings that address societal and political demands for increased environmental and resource sustainability and resiliency to the effects of climate change without lessening the historical building regulatory focus on health, safety and welfare of building occupants. It can be argued that a transition from prescriptive to performance-based building regulatory regimes, coupled with the introduction of new policy objectives for sustainability and resiliency, in a rather short period of time, without full assessment of how they interact with existing building regulatory objectives, and without broadly agreed holistic solutions, has led to the introduction of new objectives that have the potential to result in increased hazards and risks to occupants. To explore the current situation and future needs associated with performance building regulatory regimes and the inclusion of sustainability and resiliency objectives for new and existing buildings, the literature was reviewed and a survey of building regulatory bodies and institutions in 12 countries was conducted to obtain perspectives on whether and how sustainability and resiliency objectives are being incorporated into their building regulations and if any challenges have been identified.
The Building Code of Australia (BCA) is the principal code under which building approvals in Australia are assessed. The BCA adopted performance-based solutions for building approvals in 1996. Performance-based codes are based upon a set of explicit objectives, stated in terms of a hierarchy of requirements beginning with key general objectives. With this in mind, the research presented in this paper aims to analyse the impact of the introduction of the performance-based code within Western Australia to gauge the effect and usefulness of alternative design solutions in commercial construction using a case study project. The research revealed that there are several advantages to the use of alternative designs and that all parties, in general, are in favour of the performance-based building code of Australia. It is suggested that change in the assessment process to streamline the alternative design path is needed for the greater use of the performance-based alternative. With appropriate quality control measures, minor variations to the deemed-to-satisfy provisions could easily be managed by the current and future building surveying profession.
Research on building code development shows that there are critical factors relating to their development, and highlights that code development involves key trade-offs. In this research, we provide new insight into a condition that many countries face and where there is virtually no research. How should countries handle building code development when key trade-offs need to be made between the possible impacts of new technology, changes in the environment and social and cultural issues, and the systems and processes by which these challenges are met. A comprehensive empirical case study of Australia’s building code arrangements and difficulties is presented. This unique data provides insight on the strategies used and difficulties faced by Australia in the review and development of its building codes. Implications for innovative new building code development success are identified.
Risk, as a factor adversely affecting the project, is taken into account as early as at the first stage of the investment process when the tender is won for a contract. The risk level, identified for a particular construction contract, is a serious factor influencing the decision about accepting the contract or not. The key issue is proper identification of contract risk. The risk factors which have a significant impact on the success of the project, and are most common ones, are then analyzed. The method of verification depends on the company's experience in the construction industry. The task of the article is to present the results of studies focused on separating and determining the frequency of financial risk factors in construction projects and their impact on project implementation. We have analyzed 30 construction projects (office buildings, production halls, educational buildings, demolition works, etc.) completed in north-western Poland. The degree of risk (planned and real) for the contract was set as a percentage in relation to the size of contract (costs in million PLN). The aim of the study was to verify the existence of relationship between the kind of structure, the size of contract, and the scope and degree of risk. Statistical approach has been used. This study is a prelude to determining the contract risks identification procedure (i.e., estimating reserves to be used in unforeseen circumstances) so that the company could be competitive, and the price offer to be provided to investors could be advantageous.
Formal analyses can be valuable aids to decision-making if their limits are understood. Those limits arise from the two forms
of subjectivity found in all analyses: ethical judgments, made when setting the terms of an analysis, and scientific judgments,
made when conducting it. As formal analysis has assumed a larger role in policy decisions, awareness of those judgments has
grown, as have methods for making them. The present review traces these developments, using examples that illustrate the issues
that arise when designing, executing, and interpreting analyses. It concludes with lessons learned from the science and practice
of analysis. One common thread in these lessons is the importance of collaborative processes, whereby analysts and decision-makers
educate one another about their respective needs and capabilities.
An optimal allocation of societal resources for life saving activities is guaranteed by deriving acceptance criteria for risk to life from efficiency considerations based on the marginal life saving costs principle. The Life Quality Index (LQI) can be used to quantify the societal willingness to pay for a marginal increase in life safety. The LQI net benefit criterion is the state-of-the-art method to establish quantitative risk acceptance criteria, being applicable to all areas where resources for life saving activities have to be allocated. Yet for the application of the LQI principle to real-world regulatory decisions, clear guidelines are missing on how the assessment of conformity with societal preferences has to be performed. Problems arise especially when costs and benefits of a safety relevant decision accrue at different points in time and need to be discounted before comparison. Also in many cases the time horizon of the decision is not clearly defined. In the present paper we focus on the choice of time horizon for acceptance criteria. The aim of the discussion is to specify clear guidelines for a consistent application of the LQI net benefit criterion for regulatory purposes.
A review of two decades of worldwide experience using standards, codes and guidelines related to performance-based fire protection design for buildings has identified shortcomings in the interpretation, application and implementation of the performance-based design process, apparent inconsistency in the resulting levels of performance achieved and several opportunities to enhance the process. In a constantly evolving building environment, technical challenges have to be overcome because fire safety engineering still depends greatly on knowledge gained from scientific and engineering research across a broad range of disciplines (e.g., better understanding of the fire phenomena, the behavior and response of the building occupants/contents/structure to the fire, tools for engineering analysis and all the necessary data needed to support tool application). Political challenges also need to be considered as performance-based fire protection design requires the approval of the authority having jurisdiction and other involved stakeholders, at several of its different steps (design, construction, original usage, modifications of usage). The review presented here has been undertaken from an engineering perspective rather than a regulatory perspective. Two key outcomes of this engineering review are that several of the challenges that have been identified are strongly linked to the application of generic guidance to specific problems, which results in critical details being missed, and that some of the engineering issues are treated within a political context, while they should be addressed as purely technical issues.
Nowadays, a wide range of stakeholders seek explicit performance and risk information on construction projects. These stakeholders include end-users, authorities, insurance companies and financial institutions, among others. They look for proof that engineering risks are being properly managed and that specified performance-based requirements are fulfilled throughout all stages of the project (e.g. technical requirements related to the building such as structural safety, structural serviceability, structural durability, fire safety, energy efficiency, or others). Such demonstration can be conveyed through statements of technical conformity, such as technical risk reports or engineering performance certificates. Statements of conformity are particularly valuable to make informed decisions associated with contractual or other legal warranties against building nonconformities. This paper describes the conceptual background and the methodologies undertaken to design and develop a management framework that enables recognition of the conformity assessment results of building projects. It also presents the outreach of this management framework throughout the planning, programming, design, construction and use phases of building projects. This paper also summarizes the wide range of practical implications and benefits of this management framework for authorities and official bodies, owners and their representatives, banks and insurance companies, conformity assessment bodies, designers, builders, suppliers and end-users.
The development of parallel ISO “risk” standards series – ISO 31,000 and 27,000 and now Security Risk (28,001) versions, underlines the divergences in requirements from the different currently practising risk management communities. This is highlighted in the content of the series of ongoing web based discussions (Linked in) (Institute of Risk management, 2011). The contributions have been thoughtful, authoritative and illuminating and it is reassuring that even after (or perhaps because of) recent events and crises, (Fukushima, Lehman Bros, Eurozone, etc.) and new emerging threats (CYBER), responsible management seems still determined to understand and manage its risk exposures. However it is clear that there are practical difficulties in justifying the use of some of the more common management tools (such as Probability consequence diagrams – PCD’s), that could inhibit the wider utilisation of predictive analysis to help steer corporate decision making. This contribution to the debate is aimed at trying to re-establish the basis of these techniques and to help justify their continued usage in a more rigorous and universally accepted and acceptable (useful) format.
It seems generally accepted that the FN-curve is a fairly accurate description of the societal risk. However in the communication with the public and representative decisionmakers a schematisation of the FN-curve to one or two numbers may bring certain advantages. Various measures like Potential loss of Life, the area under the FN-curve, the Risk Integral etc. are proposed in the literature. Although the formulae look distinctly different at first sight a more thorough inspection reveals, that all schematisations contain as building blocks the two familiar statistical moments of the FN-curve, the expected value of the number of deaths E(N) and the standard deviation s(N). In the paper the linear combination E(N) + k.s(N) is proposed as a simple risk averse measure of the societal risk.
Performance-based fire protection design (PBFPD) approaches have now been in use for more than 20 years. One might be tempted to conclude that the current ‘state of the art’ is working well. However, application of PBFPD remains limited, several shortcomings exist, and an increasing number of countries are moving toward ‘prescribed performance’ to address the gaps. There are many factors contributing to these problems with PBFPD. Research has been carried out in two principal problem areas: the relationship between occupants and fire safety measures in the context of holistic building performance expectations during everyday use of the building, and also the lack of specifics within current PBFPD approaches. To address these concerns, a new framework for risk-informed PBFPD has been developed, centered on the study of systems formed by specific building types and their associated occupants. This framework replaces generic guidance with a more in-depth and targeted “building-occupant” system approach. This article focuses on how a successful implementation of the new risk-informed PBFPD approach will require acceptance of the need for a paradigm shift from one in which fire is the center of the problem to one in which building performance metrics are evaluated in case of fire events. This article also details the different steps of the new PBFPD process and how this process differs from the current ones, notably in separating technical steps from political steps related to decision making and policy. Finally, this article presents how the new approach is practically applied to a project, focusing on a proof of concept of the new PBFPD process.
The performance building regulatory and design environment promises great opportunities for engineers and designers to innovate and to apply analytical tools and methods to design safe, cost effective, and aesthetically pleasing buildings. However, for regulators and enforcement officials, performance-based approaches are often met with skepticism and concern, as the desired performance is not always well defined and agreed, the perceived certainty associated with compliance with prescriptive design requirements is no longer be assured, and there is concern that the data, tools and methods – necessary to assure that performance-based designed buildings achieve the levels of performance and risk deemed tolerable to society – are lacking. A risk-informed performance-based approach is being explored to address some of these critical issues, with the aim to better connect tolerable risk, performance expectations, and design criteria. Risk-informed performance-based approaches being considered in Australia, New Zealand and the United States are discussed.
There is a plethora of regulation relating to building form and performance and, seemingly, much more emphasis on risk identification and its management, particularly in relation to the processes underpinning the development and delivery of building projects. It appears that the practices of architects, like other urban design professionals, are implicated in the construction of risky objects and their mitigation by recourse to systems of managerial governance. Drawing on survey and interview data, it is suggested that a new focus for the understanding of architecture, and urban design more generally, ought to be consideration of the interrelationships between creativity, risk and regulation. The paper describes and evaluates architects’ understanding of, and responses to, what they perceive to be increased exposure to risk (and its regulation) in the design process. The paper is built around the proposition that risk and its regulation are entwined with organisational changes in the nature of project development and delivery, and linked with the emergence of what might be regarded as diffused or dispersed organisational forms that in and of themselves become harbingers of risk while also being one of the means to create new forms of risk governance. In turn, many of architects’ responses to risk revolve around procedures to secure reputation in contexts where loss of standing and repute is perceived to be a significant threat.
From the earliest periods of architecture and building, architects' actions have been conditioned by rules, regulations, standards, and governance practices. These range from socio-cultural and religious codes seeking to influence the formal structure of settlement patterns, to prescriptive building regulations specifying detailed elements of design in relation to the safety of building structures. In Architectural Design and Regulation the authors argue that the rule and regulatory basis of architecture is part of a broader field of socio-institutional and political interventions in the design and development process that serve to delimit, and define, the scope of the activities of architects. The book explores how the practices of architects are embedded in complex systems of rules and regulations. The authors develop the understanding that the rules and regulations of building form and performance ought not to be counterpoised as external to creative processes and practices, but as integral to the creation of well-designed places. The contribution of Architectural Design and Regulation is to show that far from the rule and regulatory basis of architecture undermining the capacities of architects to design, they are the basis for new and challenging activities that open up possibilities for reinventing the actions of architects.
If asked, most people would agree that there are deep connections between technology and the modern world, and even that technology is the truly distinctive feature of modernity. Until recently, however, there has been surprisingly little overlap between technology studies and modernity theory. The goal of this ambitious book is to lay the foundations for a new interdisciplinary field by closely examining the co-construction of technology and modernity.
The book is divided into three parts. Part I lays the methodological groundwork for combining studies of technology and modernity, while integrating ideas drawn from feminism, critical theory, philosophy, sociology, and socioeconomics. Part II continues the methodological discussion, focusing on specific sociotechnical systems or technologies with prominent relations to modernity. Part III introduces practical and political issues by considering alternative modes of technology development and offering critiques of modern medicine, environmental technology, international development, and technology policy. The book as a whole suggests a broad research program that is both academic and applied and that will help us understand how contemporary societies can govern technologies instead of being governed by them.
It has been suggested that future generations of building regulations can become more risk-informed and performance based, and that development of the regulations and the risk bases that underpin them should occur within a socio-technical systems framework. To facilitate this, it is important for regulators and the market to understand and agree the risk measure(s) that will be used to define the risks, the specific risk criteria that will be used in the evaluation of the risks, and the analysis and design approaches that will be used to demonstrate that building design solutions can be verified as meeting the risk criteria and measures. To help facilitate movement towards this objective, a roadmap is presented, which includes guidance relative to selecting a risk measure, associated risk criteria, and appropriate means of quantifying risk and undertaking risk-informed design of buildings. BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
Fire safety provisions in building regulation are about managing risk. In order to appropriately characterize and incorporate risk measures into building regulation, it is helpful to view building regulatory systems (BRS) as complex socio-technical systems (STS), wherein there are interactions between institutions, technology and people, which ideally work together to mitigate risk to a societally tolerable level. A description of BRS as STS and how to assess the efficacy of the BRS in managing fire risk is presented. To illustrate how STS concepts can be used to evaluate and restructure a functional- or performance-based BRS, STS concepts are applied to the evaluation of the building regulatory system in England.
A common approach to define criteria to reliability performance of structures in the development of semi-probabilistic design codes and for probabilistic design of individual structures is to make use of the tentative target reliabilities provided in the JCSS Probabilistic Model Code. An acceptable level of life safety is, however, not guaranteed when applying the target reliabilities provided by the JCSS, as these have been derived based on monetary optimization. In the present paper, the underlying generic framework for structural design optimization is reviewed and extended for the derivation of life safety related target reliabilities based on the marginal lifesaving costs principle. The resulting minimum acceptable reliabilities may be used in combination with the JCSS target reliabilities to achieve designs that are both cost-efficient and consistent with societal preferences for lifesaving investments. The framework presented in this paper forms the basis for the target reliabilities defined in ISO 2394:2015, where the target reliabilities proposed by the JCSS have been combined with minimum acceptable reliabilities to ensure societal acceptability in terms of life safety. An extended discussion of the general framework and its underlying assumptions includes considerations about the application of the target reliabilities at component or system level, accounting for structural robustness, as well as implications for the interpretation of the main variables entering the framework.
A probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) is commonly accepted as a tool for performance based design in fire safety engineering, but the position of PRA in the design process, the relationship between different acceptance concepts (absolute, comparative, ALARP), and the responsibilities of the designer remain unclear. Aiming to clarify these aspects, the safety foundation of fire safety solutions is investigated, indicating that PRA is necessary for demonstrating adequate safety when no appeal can be made to the collective experience of the profession. It is suggested that PRA is not a methodology for ‘future fire safety engineering’, but rather a necessary methodology to provide an objective safety foundation for uncommon fire safety designs. Acknowledging that what constitutes ‘acceptable safety’ is subjective and may change over time, an objective proxy of ‘adequate safety’ is defined and proposed as a benchmark against which to assess the adequacy of fire safety designs. In order to clarify the PRA process, a hierarchy of different acceptance concepts is presented. Finally, it is shown how, depending on the applied acceptance concepts, the designer takes responsibility for different implicit assumptions regarding the safety performance of the final design.
Risk is a popular topic in many sciences - in natural, medical, statistical, engineering, social, economic and legal disciplines. Yet, no single discipline can grasp the full meaning of risk. Investigating risk requires a multidisciplinary approach. The authors, coming from two very different disciplinary traditions, meet this challenge by building bridges between the engineering, the statistical and the social science perspectives. The book provides a comprehensive, accessible and concise guide to risk assessment, management and governance. It includes formal approaches to risk analysis without assuming a high level of mathematical proficiency but it also offers reflection and deliberation about the socio-political context in which risk issues are embedded. A basic pillar for the book is the risk governance framework proposed by the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC). This framework offers a comprehensive means of integrating risk identification, assessment, management and communication. The authors develop and explain new insights and add substance to the various elements of the framework. The theoretical analysis is illustrated by several examples from different areas of applications.
Often described as a public policy “bible,” Weimer and Vining remains the essential primer it ever was. Now in its sixth edition, Policy Analysis provides a strong conceptual foundation of the rationales for and the limitations to public policy. It offers practical advice about how to do policy analysis, but goes a bit deeper to demonstrate the application of advanced analytical techniques through the use of case studies. Updates to this edition include: A chapter dedicated to distinguishing between policy analysis, policy research, stakeholder analysis, and research about the policy process. An extensively updated chapter on policy problems as market and governmental failure that explores the popularity of Uber and its consequences. The presentation of a property rights perspective in the chapter on government supply to help show the goal tensions that arise from mixed ownership. An entirely new chapter on performing analysis from the perspective of a public agency and a particular program within the agency’s portfolio: public agency strategic analysis (PASA). A substantially rewritten chapter on cost-benefit analysis, to better prepare students to become producers and consumers of the types of cost-benefit analyses they will encounter in regulatory analysis and social policy careers. A new introductory case with a debriefing that provides advice to help students immediately begin work on their own projects. Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practices remains a comprehensive, serious, and rich introduction to policy analysis for students in public policy, public administration, and business programs.
Building regulatory systems have been evolving in recent decades, first with a transition to a functional or performance basis, and more recently with the introduction of new societal objectives, including those related to sustainability and climate change resiliency. Various policy and technical challenges have been identified with this evolution, including the lack of a common basis for establishing performance expectations, quantified performance metrics, and robust mechanisms to incorporate new objectives in a manner that effectively integrates a diversity of stakeholder input and results in regulatory requirements that do not compete with long-standing objectives. Among the mechanisms being explored to facilitate a managed evolution is the use of risk as a basis for performance, and modifications within the building regulatory environment to enable this. It is posited that framing the building regulatory system as a socio-technical system (STS) will highlight the complex interactions that exist between regulators and the market, the roles stakeholders play in characterizing risk for use in building regulation, and what steps are required to shift to a risk-informed performance-based building regulatory system, taking into account different legal structures and regulatory approaches that exist between jurisdictions.
This article summarizes and comments on the test of a manual developed by Dow Chemical to provide guidelines for its employees during process scale-up. The discussion focuses on the problem of what guidelines to draw upon to improve the probability of a successful scale-up. There are nine sections in the manual. In the first, ″General Techniques for Scale-Up″ , five approaches are considered. They range from full-scale tests (no scale-up) to a completely empirical approach. The other sections are geared for the chemist and engineer to use at the early stages of research. They include a section on a ″Chemical Process from Lab to Pilot Plant, Basic Data Collection, Material Balance, Reaction″ , etc, a section on ″Reaction Kinetics″ , and one on ″Simulation Approach to Scale-Up″ . The technical sections are in the form of a questionnaire to be used by the scale-up team or project leader.
This paper describes three applications of Rasmussen's idea to systems engineering practice. The first is the application of the abstraction hierarchy to engineering specifications, particularly requirements specification. The second is the use of Rasmussen's ideas in safety modeling and analysis to create a new, more powerful type of accident causation model that extends traditional models to better handle human-operated, software-intensive, sociotechnical systems. Because this new model has a formal, mathematical foundation built on systems theory (as was Rasmussen's original model), new modeling and analysis tools become possible. The third application is to engineering hazard analysis. Engineers have traditionally either omitted human from consideration in system hazard analysis or have treated them rather superficially, for example, that they behave randomly. Applying Rasmussen's model of human error to a powerful new hazard analysis technique allows human behavior to be included in engineering hazard analysis.
Many decisions are based on beliefs concerning the likelihood of uncertain events such as the outcome of an election, the guilt of a defendant, or the future value of the dollar. Occasionally, beliefs concerning uncertain events are expressed in numerical form as odds or subjective probabilities. In general, the heuristics are quite useful, but sometimes they lead to severe and systematic errors. The subjective assessment of probability resembles the subjective assessment of physical quantities such as distance or size. These judgments are all based on data of limited validity, which are processed according to heuristic rules. However, the reliance on this rule leads to systematic errors in the estimation of distance. This chapter describes three heuristics that are employed in making judgments under uncertainty. The first is representativeness, which is usually employed when people are asked to judge the probability that an object or event belongs to a class or event. The second is the availability of instances or scenarios, which is often employed when people are asked to assess the frequency of a class or the plausibility of a particular development, and the third is adjustment from an anchor, which is usually employed in numerical prediction when a relevant value is available.
As climate change impacts result in more extreme events (such as droughts and floods), the need to understand which policies facilitate effective climate change adaptation becomes crucial. Hence, this article answers the question: How do governments and policymakers frame policy in relation to climate change, droughts, and floods and what governance structures facilitate adaptation? This research interrogates and analyzes through content analysis, supplemented by semi-structured qualitative interviews, the policy response to climate change, drought, and flood in relation to agricultural producers in four case studies in river basins in Chile, Argentina, and Canada. First, an epistemological explanation of risk and uncertainty underscores a brief literature review of adaptive governance, followed by policy framing in relation to risk and uncertainty, and an analytical model is developed. Pertinent findings of the four cases are recounted, followed by a comparative analysis. In conclusion, recommendations are made to improve policies and expand adaptive governance to better account for uncertainty and risk. This article is innovative in that it proposes an expanded model of adaptive governance in relation to "risk" that can help bridge the barrier of uncertainty in science and policy.
Conference code: 88343, Cited By :2, Export Date: 4 September 2015, Correspondence Address: Sanctis, G.D.; Institute of Structural Engineering ETH, Zurich, Switzerland, References: Methodik zur Vergleichenden Risikobewertung, , AGB 2005/102 2009:, UVEK Eidgenössisches Departement für Umwelt, Verkehr, Energie und Kommunikation;
During the evaluation of societal risk acceptance based on the Life Quality Index (LQI), the marginal life saving costs have to be assessed and compared with the Societal Willingness to Pay for a marginal increase in life safety. With this procedure, decisions on investments into different risk reduction measures are based on efficiency considerations in order to achieve an optimal allocation of limited societal resources. Three basic assumptions can have a large effect on the efficiency of a risk reduction measure and the absolute level of risk to life deemed to be acceptable by the LQI criterion: The definition of the marginal life saving costs, the discount rate used for comparing costs and benefits that accrue at different points in time and the time horizon over which future consequences of the decision are taken into account. In the present paper these issues are discussed based on a clear differentiation between monetary optimization and the societal risk acceptance criterion, which enters the decision as a boundary condition. The aim is to provide clear guidelines on how the assessment of marginal life saving costs has to be performed in the context of regulating different risks to life based on the LQI criterion.
Building ventilation has long been recognized for its role in occupant health, comfort and productivity, with some of the first recommendations on building ventilation rates published in the 19th century. These recommendations were subsequently transformed into more rigorous standards and guidance in the 20th century, with the first version of ASHRAE Standard 62 published in 1973. Since that time, ventilation standards have been issued in several countries around the world and have dealt with an increasingly complex and challenging range of issues as research on indoor air quality and the state of knowledge of building performance have progressed. This paper reviews and discusses some of the issues that have been addressed in the development of ventilation standards in recent years using the development of ASHRAE Standard 62 as context, including: the scientific bases for ventilation requirements, perceived indoor air quality, contaminant sources from occupants and the building, outdoor air quality, airborne contaminant limits, indoor carbon dioxide concentrations, environmental tobacco smoke, and performance-based design. Issues that are expected to be dealt with as Standard 62 and other standards are developed into the future are also reviewed.
Following the Gulf of Mexico blowout of 2010, various parties called for the introduction of safety case regulation in the US. Such regulation is well known in various other jurisdictions around the world and is regarded as best practice for the regulation of rare but catastrophic events. New regulation in the US must pass the cost/benefit test or alternatively show why strict cost/benefit analysis is inapplicable. This paper argues that safety case regulation can surmount this hurdle. It argues that strict cost/benefit analysis is impossible for safety case regulation and it demonstrates this by providing a detailed critique of the attempts by the European Commission to provide a cost/benefit justification for the introduction of safety case regulation for offshore oil and gas production in its jurisdiction. The paper argues that such regulation can be justified in the US on other grounds; first, the polluter pays principle, second, the fact that society regards multiple fatalities occurring together far more seriously than the same number of fatalities occurring separately; and third, that the incidents to be prevented are viewed by the courts as criminal and therefore to be prevented as a matter of principle.
This article discusses how the concepts of safety level and safety margin have been approached in recognized peer-reviewed journals within the field of fire safety science. The aim is to explore the scientific efforts that have been made to advocate principles for dimensioning fire safety arrangements in buildings. We restrict our discussion to novel buildings in the sense of lack of similar constructions with relevant long term experience. Due to increasing complexity in buildings, infrastructures, technical systems and society in general, we argue that traditional fire safety science based on natural science principles alone is severely limited. We argue that fire safety and safety margins are emergent properties of socio-technical systems that need to be managed rather than verified. The search for objectivity and mechanistic decision criteria is futile and diverts attention from the main purpose of engineering: to guide decisions during the whole design process and thus enable safe operation. An adapted framework for fire safety engineering is proposed, built around traditional fire safety engineering principles, and founded on constructivist systems theory. The focus is observable quantities and how these quantities can be managed during design and operation of a building project. The framework eases the involvement of stakeholders who are required to consider the safety aspects of the building design. The end goal of fire safety design in our framework is the development of a fire safety control structure that must be enforced to keep systems in a safe state, in which safety margins are deemed sufficient.
Structures should be optimal with respect to the economic investment, the benefits derived from their existence, the expected consequences in case of failure and the degree of protection to human life and limb. This paper presents the implications of a new optimization strategy for the seismic design of structures. A renewal model for the sequence of structural failures is used to define the objective function for optimizing the design of structures in seismic regions. The Life Quality Index, which is a compound social indicator, is included in the optimization for the efficiency of the measures to save human lives. This criterion balances quality-adjusted life years saved against the associated cost for society. The results show that safety standards used in current practice in earthquake engineering should be reviewed in the light of optimization of resources and saving human lives. They also show the importance of different socio-economic characteristics in the definition of risk acceptability.
How do individuals assess the credibility of experts in various policy domains? Under what conditions does the public interpret particular scientific knowledge claims as being trustworthy and credible? Using data collected from an online survey experiment, administered to 1,507 adult residents of Quebec, this paper seeks answers to these questions. Specifically, we examine variation in the way members of the public perceive the credibility of scientific experts in the areas of climate change, shale gas extraction, cell phones, and wind farms. Our results contribute to the existing literatures on public perceptions of policy experts, framing, and cultural theory. We find that individuals evaluate expert credibility based on the way in which experts frame issues, and on the congruity/dissonance between these expert communication frames and one's underlying worldview. However, we also identify limits to these framing effects. Our findings shed light on the interaction of framing and political worldviews in shaping public perceptions of expert credibility in various policymaking contexts.
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