Critical infrastructure multi-risk deployment: An innovative framework to support NaTech preparedness in industrial facilities

NaTech events—technological accidents triggered by natural hazards—may lead to catastrophic scenarios harming people, the environment, and the economy. Yet, given the multi-risk nature of NaTech scenarios, many industrial facilities remain unprepared due to the lack of context-specific guidelines. This research develops a multi-risk framework based on previously discussed opportunities to strengthen a NaTech indicator, translating it into an operational methodology to improve industrial preparedness for NaTech events. Consequently, the Quality Function Deployment tool was adapted into the Industrial Critical Infrastructure Multi-Risk Deployment (ICI-MRD) framework—a practical roadmap for integrating advanced multi-risk considerations into industrial safety design. This novel adaptation addresses criteria from disaster risk reduction, land use planning, policy analysis, and resilience engineering by combining innovative engineering tools with multidisciplinary approaches. Moreover, a location priority factor (LPF) was introduced to contextualize the territorial vulnerabilities. A rating system was integrated for multi-risk assessment, including criteria based on quantitative historical data and qualitative evaluation when deterministic data is unavailable. Five categories of priority were associated with the punctual infrastructure multi-risk value as a warning metric. The ICI-MRD framework was then tested in an energy-critical infrastructure, considering four natural hazards, their cascading interactions, and assessing their impact on eight categories of industrial items that mutually interact. The final ICI-MRD output value of 2.07, corresponding to a “moderate” priority, provides data-driven guidance for updating emergency protocols through the analysis of intermediate outputs. These outputs help decision-makers to provide vulnerability-centered strategies to improve both industrial and territorial preparedness while fostering dialogue among operators, practitioners, governments, and the public.