Casualty assesments for industrial chemicals and nerve agents

Authors:

  • Bo Koch
  • Sofia Jonasson

Publish date: 2012-12-27

Report number: FOI-R--3545--SE

Pages: 31

Written in: Swedish

Keywords:

  • Casualty assessment
  • probit function
  • AEGL
  • industrial chemicals
  • nerve
  • agents

Abstract

The aim of this report is to provide guidance for how to calculate casualty assessments on the basis of the results of different dispersion models. Dispersion models are intended to describe the distribution of chemicals in the environment for example after a chemical accident. With these results, we can predict the risk of health effects in the public at various examples of disasters where people may be exposed to toxic industrial chemicals or chemical warfare agents. In assessing the effects of exposure to substance toxicity, route of exposure, exposure time and dosage must be taken into account. A probit function is being used in order to describe the relationship between exposure and casualty assessment. The probit function assumes that the toxic effect does not increase linearly with the increasing dose. In this report only exposure from inhalation is considered. The industrial chemicals chosen for this report are acrylonitrile, ammonia, ethylene oxide, chlorine, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen sulfide. The chemicals are chosen based on the scale of production, handling, storage, and transport in Sweden. Nerve agents selected for this project are sarin, soman and VX. These are classified as weapons of mass destruction in UN Resolution 687. The current report is part of the project "CBR Effektmodeller", which is a summary of the results of the project's C-section.