External safety policy in the netherlands: An approach to risk management

Abstract A description is given of the use of risk management by the Dutch government in their external safety policy. This risk management scheme comprises the following aspects: risk identification, risk quantification, risk assessment, risk reduction and risk control. For the process of risk assessment, quantitative criteria for both individual risk and group risk have been developed. Legislation emerging from this policy is completed or in preparation. As an example are the administrative orders emerging from the so-called “LPG-nota”. The latter is a policy statement of the Dutch government based on a probabilistic risk assessment of the whole chain of LPG-handling activities from import to retail trade.