Hazard analysis
Hazard analysis is a method for identifying hazards and for determining their possible effects on your community, geographical area or activity (be it a commercial, operational, administrative activity etc.). It is the 'part of the overall planning process which identifies and describes hazards and their effects upon the community'. Source: Natural Disasters Organisation (1992). Australian Emergency Manual -Community Planning Guide, Canberra. The information that a hazard analysis provides is essential for emergency prevention and preparedness. If you don't know what is likely to go wrong, and what the effects will be, you can't be effectively prepared, and you will have trouble preventing it.
There are a number of possible methods of analysing hazards. This subject presents you with two of these methods, a qualitative hazard analysis process for communities, geographical areas and activities, and a quantitative hazard analysis process for industry. 'Qualitative' in this context means that there is a minimum of probability estimations, physical measurements and mathematical calculation. 'Quantitative' means that there are a large number of calculations based on physical measurements and probabilities. At the end of this subject, we expect you to be able to conduct a qualitative hazard analysis-only those with a high degree of engineering and mathematical training and experience, and practical experience in industry, can be expected to conduct quantitative hazard analysis.
The method or process for qualitative hazard analysis presented in this unit is a series of steps each of which contains a number of techniques. For example, hazard identification, community and environmental description, and hazard description are some of the steps. In turn, there are a number of techniques for identifying hazards, for describing the people, property and environment that they may affect, and for describing hazards. Each of these is explained within the following topics.