Safety from Physical Viewpoint: "Two-Risk Model in Multiple Risk Problem." Prof. I. I. Kuz’min and Dr. V. A. Akimov, Emercom of Russia, Davidkovskaia Str., 7, Moskow, 121352, Russia, telephone/fax (7095) 443-24-85, e-mail kuzmin@quest.net.kiae.su

The problem of safety provision for people and environment within the framework of a certain socioeconomic system (SES) as a problem of managing a great number of interacting risks characterizing numerous hazards (natural, manmade, social, economic once, etc.) inherent in the certain SES has been discussed. From the physical point of view, it can be considered a problem of interaction of many bodies which has no accurate mathematical solution, even if the laws of interaction of this bodies are known. In physics, to solve this problem, an approach based on the reduction of the above-mentioned problem to the problem of two-body interaction which can be solved accurately in mathematics has been used.

The report presents a similar approach to the problem of risk management in the SES. This approach includes the subdivision of numerous hazards inherent within the framework of the SES into two classes of hazards, so that each of the classes could be considered an integrated whole one, each of them being characterized by the appropriate risk. Consequently, problem of «multiple-risk« management (i.e. the problem of many bodies, as represented in physics) can be reduced to the «two-risk» management problem (that is, to the problem two-bodies). Within the framework of the two-risk model, the optimization of costs to reduce the two kinds of risk, that is, the risk inherent in the SES as a whole, as well as the risk potentially provoked by lots of activities to be introduced in the SES economy has been described. The model has made it possible to formulate and prove the theorem of equilibrium in risk management. Using the theorem, a relatively simple and practically applicable procedure of optimizing the threshold costs to reduce diverse kinds of risk has been elaborated. The procedure provides to assess the minimum value of the cost that can be achieved regarding the socio- economic factors typical of the SES under discussion. The aimed function to be determined with this procedure is the duration of the anticipated life period, the control variables being «the cost of prolongation of the life period» in monetary equivalent.

Different examples of implementing the above procedure, such as introduction of nuclear power engineering in the SES economy, safety provisions in transportation, transboundary risk management, etc., have been discussed.

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