Preventing intentional disasters by investigating the security of chemical industrial areas

Chemical industrial areas or so-called chemical clusters consist of various companies situated next to each other. Such areas are composed of hundreds of chemical installations exhibiting danger to a certain degree for initiating or continuing knock-on effects. In this article, such clusters are modelled as networks and a theoretical methodology to investigate their network characteristics is suggested. This novel proposed approach leads to the conclusion that these areas display in some cases small world behaviour and offer a tool to prioritize industrial clusters as regards such behaviour. Considering parameters such as the size of the area and the efficiency of risk analysis performances in the area, the security of industrial areas can be carried out in a more mathematical way. As a result, security measures can be based on (more objective) quantitative data, complementary, to (currently widespread) qualitative security vulnerability analyses.