The control of major accident hazards: the land-use planning issue

Land-Use Planning with respect to major accident hazards constitutes one of the new requirements of the 'Seveso II Directive'. The paper discusses the rationale and the requirements set by the Directive for the operators of the plants and the planning authorities to take into account the major accident hazards in the land-use planning procedure. Then, the paper focuses on approaches and criteria applied in the European Union, and gives information on procedures in other countries, wherever available. The approaches analysed are grouped into three broad categories, namely, establishing 'generic distances', 'consequence based', and 'risk based'. Finally, two illustrative examples facilitate understanding and comparison of the analysed approaches.