Building risk assessment methodology for explosive and non-conventional terrorist attacks

Abstract

An original methodology suitable for the assessment of the risk of a terrorist attack in a given site/building is proposed and illustrated for the case of an explosive or non-conventional (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and explosive—CBRNe) attack. The Building Risk Assessment Methodology discussed in this paper represents the arrival point of a detailed analysis and research carried out during the past 5 years and provides the synthesis of different results obtained for the assessment of Building Threats and Building Vulnerabilities. These two assessments were discussed in detail in other already published papers. The effort presented in this work is to deploy a risk and impact assessment technique for buildings that can be adopted in any operating scenario in the presence of explosive or non-conventional threats. The main target of the methodology is to provide a sufficiently accurate estimate of the risk in a simple fashion. The methodology allows to manage the different kinds of risk related to the explosive and non-conventional threats, and it is useful for identifying a ranking of risks for different buildings in different portions of territory and for prioritizing actions and investments in preparedness, protection and resilience of critical areas and critical infrastructures. In the paper, the results of two different case studies for three different threats will be considered, analyzed and compared.