Review on activities of the european working group on land use planning, in the contest of article 12 of directive 96/82/EC, as amended by directive 2003/105/EC

Following the accidents in Enschede (13 May 2000) and Toulouse (21 September 2001), in the context of Art.12 of the Seveso II Directive, the European Commission decided to re-establish, in 2002, the Working Group on Land Use Planning, primarily based on nominations from the Competent Authorities of the Member States and representatives of Major Accidents Hazard Bureau (MAHB). Moreover, Art.1, paragraph 7b of the Amendment Directive 2003/105/EC invites the Commission in close collaboration with the Member States to draw up by 31 December 2006 "guidelines defining a technical database with risk data and risk scenarios, to be used for assessing the compatibility between Seveso establishments and residential and other sensitive areas listed in Art. 12". This work, according to the international opening of the 5th "VGR Conference", in order to exchange experience and knowledge on lessons learned from accidents and risk analysis, intends to point out the state of the art of the work plan carried out by the European Working Group on Land Use Planning, underlining the technical contribution provided by the Italian delegation, coordinated by Ministry of the Environment and Land Protection, and made up of representatives of National Agency for the Environmental Protection and Technical Services, Ministry of Interior, Italian Authority for Health and Safety at Work, Institute for the Atmospheric Pollution of the National Council of the Researches. The scope of this article is to describe the following European Working Group on Land Use Planning's products: "Land Use Planning Guidelines" [1], "Implementing art. 12 of the Seveso II directive: Overview of procedures In selected member states & "roadmap" proposals" [2] and "RAHD - Risk/Hazard Assessment Database" [3].