Regional environmental risk assessment for the Nanjing Chemical Industry Park: an analysis based on information-diffusion theory

A recent Chinese policy requires that all enterprises that store and use hazardous chemicals must become part of a chemical industry park. Although this reduces the environmental risk caused by the establishment of uncontrolled sites, it cannot eliminate the risk within the industrial park; on the contrary, it may exacerbate the risk. The storage and use of a wide range of hazardous chemicals in the industrial park increases both the complexity and the diversity of the environmental risk. Identification of the sources of risk will significantly affect the results of regional risk assessments. In this paper, we selected China’s Nanjing Chemical Industry Park as a case study. Based on an environmental risk assessment for every enterprise within the park, we calculated the maximum environmental risk values of each individual risk source and obtained the overall regional environmental risk values by using information-diffusion theory. The regional environmental risk value can be clustered according to the classification criteria described in this paper and depicted using a spatial partitioning map. The result can help administrative managers optimize the distribution of industrial areas and support the development of risk-prevention and -management measures.