A method to relate chemical accident properties and expert judgements in order to derive useful information for the development of Environment-Accident Index.

• The environment consists of a variety of different compartments and processes that act together in a complex system that complicate the environmental risk assessment after a chemical accident. The Environment-Accident Index (EAI) is an example of a tool based on a strategy to join the properties of a chemical with site-specific properties to facilitate this assessment and to be used in the planning process. In the development of the EAI it is necessary to make an unbiased judgement of relevant variables to include in the formula and to estimate their relative importance. The development of EAI has so far included the assimilation of chemical accidents, selection of a representative set of chemical accidents, and response values (representing effects in the environment after a chemical accident) have been developed by means of an expert panel. The developed responses were then related to the chemical and site-specific properties, through a mathematical model based on multivariate modelling (PLS), to create an improved EAI model. This resulted in EAInew, a PLS based EAI model connected to a new classification scale. The advantages of EAInew compared to the old EAI (EAIold) is that it can be calculated without the use of tables, it can estimate the effects for all included responses and make a rough classification of chemical accidents according to the new classification scale. Finally EAInew is a more stable model than EAIold, built on a valid base of accident scenarios which makes it more reliable to use for a variety of chemicals and situations as it covers a broader spectra of accident scenarios. EAInew can be expressed as a regression model to facilitate the calculation of the index for persons that do not have access to PLS. Future work can be; an external validation of EAInew; to complete the formula structure; to adjust the classification scale; and to make a real life evaluation of EAInew.

Nyckelord

Environment-Accident Index

Expert judgements

Environmental effects

Chemical accidents

Chemical properties

Site-specific properties

PLS

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