Risk Assessment, 2nd Edition

Chapter 10 Hazard Identification

10.1 Introduction

The first question in the triplet definition of risk is: What can go wrong? Answering this question implies identifying the hazards and threats and the initiating and/or hazardous events that have the potential to cause harm to one or more assets. Several methods have been developed for this purpose. These methods are called hazard identification methods.

Definition 10.1 (Hazard identification)

The process of identifying and describing all the significant hazards, threats, and hazardous events associated with a system (DEF‐STAN 00‐56 2007).

Several hazard identification methods are not only delimited to identification of hazards but also cover the two other questions in the definition of risk. They can therefore be regarded as “complete” risk analysis methods. Comprehensive descriptions and reviews of hazard identification methods are given in HSL (2005) and ISO 31010 (2009).

10.1.1 Objectives of Hazard Identification

The objectives of the hazard identification process are to

1. identify all the hazards and hazardous events that are relevant during all intended use and foreseeable misuse of the study object, and during all interactions with the study object;
2. describe the characteristics, and the form and quantity, of each hazard;
3. describe when and where in the study object the hazard is present;
4. identify possible enabling events and conditions related to each hazard;
5. identify under what conditions the hazard ...