Insights into the vulnerability of industrial infrastructure against lightning strikes applied to the Italian context

This study delves into the impactful realm of lightning strikes, a meteorological phenomenon that poses substantial risks to the process industry by potentially triggering technological disruptions. This paper focuses on the territorial aspects linked to the lightning-triggered NaTech events, using the Italian geographical context as a case study. The novel insights gained from a historical analysis of NaTech events caused by lightning in the process industry allowed for quantifying frequencies and conditional probabilities governing final scenarios. These insights also shed light on associated infrastructural details, including industrial equipment and the macro-sectors involved. These data were linked with the territorial distribution of the major hazard establishments in Italy and further associated with the ground lightning density in specific territories. Focusing on different locations of hypothetical plants, the differences in their susceptibility to suffering lightning-triggered Natech disasters were compared. The findings and some conceptual ideas of this research have implications for stakeholders and technicians engaged in risk assessment. This research specifically contributes to increasing vulnerability awareness against lightning strikes, not only from a functional deterministic point of view but also from a territorial comprehensive perspective.