Course content

This inter-disciplinary course will address the complex dynamics of natural disaster effects on industrial facilities and other infrastructures. Representative examples can be found in the explosions at a chemical plant following Hurricane Harvey in Texas (2017) or the Fukushima Daiichi power plant accident following the 2011 tsunami. The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme hydrometeorological events due to climate change, along with the excessive urbanisation and the progressive expansion of critical facilities for our production and energy distribution systems call for ad-hoc management of the risk from Natech events (i.e., NAtural hazard-triggered TECHnological accidents). For this reason, the course offers an overview on modelling such scenarios and what are the measures to prevent and mitigate their effects. The main themes of this course include safety, risk management, climate change and energy distribution.

Learning outcome

Knowledge: The students will get a thorough insight on the research developments in the field of Natech risk management. The students will also be able to recognize the state-of-the-art research activities in the field, and identify relevant research opportunities around their own topics.

Skills: The students shall be able to utilize models, methods and tools introduced and shared in this course into their own research.

General competence: The students shall be able to understand the mechanisms of how Natech events can develop and impact an industry and their surrounding environment, as well as identify and propose suitable measures to minimise accident risk for the exposed technological systems. The students will have the opportunity also to learn how to write a draft for a scientific paper to an international conference or journal and structure a research presentation.

Learning methods and activities

The course will be conducted as a series of 1-day seminars. The first seminar lecture will be given primarily by the course coordinator and invited lecturers, while the other seminars will include topics presented by the participants.

Recommended previous knowledge

Knowledge from TPK5160 to understand risk analysis.

Required previous knowledge

All students taking this course must be enrolled in a PhD program at NTNU or a different university.

Course materials

Selected papers in journals and conferences, and other published research reports.