Impact of storms and earthquakes on industrial installations -: New risk control approaches required?

As consequences of heavy floods in Germany in August 2002, the Umweltbundesamt UBA-German Environmental Protection Agency-started a research project on the safety of industrial installations due to technical as well as natural risks. Although the main focus of this research was on floods, risks due to storms and earthquakes were studied too. The present paper offers a brief survey of the storm and earthquake regulations for all built environment in Germany, including industrial plants. It further shows how these natural hazardous risks are treated in National building standards, and how they are transformed into residual failure risks of buildings. Based on this knowledge the manuscript then elucidates exemplary safety gaps in combination with technical risks in industrial plants under operation.