Past, present and future of Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) and the incentive it obtained from Land-Use Planning (LUP)

• Professor Ben Ale has been a driving force behind the development of quantitative risk analysis.
• The main application was in land use planning to limit process industry risks to the public.
• His retirement is an excellent moment to look back to what has been achieved.
• Despite great achievements, the method suffers still from uncertainty and outcome variability.
• A brief review is presented about further progress that can be made.

This paper tells the story about the development of Quantitative Risk Assessment, how it was conceptualized in the early 1970s in the nuclear industry, how it was employed within the chemical industry soon after, and what its status is today. The different purposes of QRA are explained, and we elaborate on one of the purposes, that is, Land-Use Planning. The role of Professor Ben Ale, as a process safety pioneer, is discussed throughout the history. We finally provide some on-going state-of-the-art research and projects to further improve QRA approaches, and we sketch the future of QRA and its relation with LUP.