title: A dynamic approach for the impact of a toxic gas dispersion hazard considering human behaviour and dispersion modelling.
abstract: The release of toxic gases due to natural/industrial accidents or terrorist attacks in populated areas can have tragic consequences. To prevent and evaluate the effects of these disasters different approaches and modelling tools have been introduced in the literature. These instruments are valuable tools for risk managers doing risk assessment of threatened areas. Despite the significant improvements in hazard assessment in case of toxic gas dispersion, these analyses do not generally include the impact of human behaviour and people movement during emergencies. This work aims at providing an approach which considers both modelling of gas dispersion and evacuation movement in order to improve the accuracy of risk assessment for disasters involving toxic gases. The approach is applied to a hypothetical scenario including a ship releasing Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) on a crowd attending a music festival. The difference between the results obtained with existing static methods (people do not move) and a dynamic approach (people move away from the danger) which considers people movement with different degrees of sophistication (either a simple linear path or more complex behavioural modelling) is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil, Environmental, Planning, Building and Chemistry, Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy.
authors.forename: Ruggiero
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lovreglio
authors.affiliation: Department of Fire Safety Engineering, Lund University, Lund, Sweden. Electronic address: enrico.ronchi@brand.lth.se.
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ronchi
authors.affiliation: Department of Flow, Heat and Combustion Mechanics, Ghent University-UGent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Georgios
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Maragkos
authors.affiliation: Department of Flow, Heat and Combustion Mechanics, Ghent University-UGent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Tarek
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Beji
authors.affiliation: Department of Flow, Heat and Combustion Mechanics, Ghent University-UGent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Bart
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Merci
mesh_terms: D000062:Accidents, Occupational; D000465:Algorithms; D001519:Behavior; D002619:Chemical Warfare Agents / Q000633:toxicity*; D004189:Disaster Planning; D005740:Gases / Q000633:toxicity*; D015386:Hazardous Substances / Q000633:toxicity*; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009585:Nitrogen Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry / Q000633:toxicity; D011042:Poisons; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012308:Risk Management; D023481:Terrorism; D014887:Weather
chemical_list: D002619:Chemical Warfare Agents; D005740:Gases; D015386:Hazardous Substances; D011042:Poisons; D009585:Nitrogen Dioxide
keywords: CFD modelling; Dispersion modelling; Evacuation modelling; Human behaviour; Toxic gas