Evaluation of Prevention and Protection Activities on Commercial, Public and Heritage Buildings

影响建筑环境和威胁人类生命的风险正在成为21世纪的主要社会问题。管理这些风险和应对火灾、洪水和恐怖袭击等紧急情况非常重要，需要进行高效和有效的规划，以确保对社会的影响最小。政府在2003年发表的白皮书《我们的消防和救援服务》提出了改革措施，将消防和救援服务的职能重新集中在预防火灾上，并扩大了其在应对气候变化和人为灾害等日益严重的威胁方面的作用。因此，现在有了一个新的法律框架，规定FRS有责任制定综合风险管理计划（IRMPs），以计划和应对一系列紧急情况。irmp的目的是通过以下方式改善社区安全并更有效地利用FRS资源：减少火灾的发生率；减少火灾和事故造成的生命损失；减少受伤的数量和严重程度；保护环境，保护民族遗产；为社区提供物有所值的服务。白皮书还强调，消防和救援服务的新思路必须基于严格的研究证据，这些研究基于对技术的审查以及防火、探测和灭火的基础科学。本提案中的工作是EPSRC与社区和地方政府（CLG）联合国家倡议的一部分，旨在鼓励和支持有关如何识别、测量和减轻火灾和其他紧急情况对个人、社区、商业、工业、环境和遗产的社会和经济影响的研究。这是对政府推动消防和救援服务改革的回应，使这项建议的研究及时，因为它有助于CLG实施FRS改革的努力。在火灾和其他突发事件的背景下，对风险评估和风险管理进行了大量的研究，这些工作大多集中在通过模拟火灾的生长和蔓延来估计风险的可能性及其影响，并以损害和损失来量化。然而，在制定风险管理计划以分配消防和救援资源的同时，建筑物中使用的预防和保护措施的性能和有效性的整合却很少受到关注。CLG、内政部和副总理办公室最近开展的工作调查了风险评估，这是制定消防应急覆盖规划进程的一部分。这项工作的一部分导致了一个工具包的开发，用于评估风险、计划响应，并对资源部署的后果进行建模。然而，irmp的新要求需要一个整体和综合的方法，并注重预防，这引入了进一步的研究挑战，这些可以总结如下：1。缺乏基于证据的方法来评估建筑物中使用的预防和保护措施的有效性；2. 在评估和预测财产、遗产和人员损失方面存在困难；3. 需要具有成本效益的决策工具来分配预防和保护资源。本建议研究的主要目的，是在谘询小组的工作基础上，调查商业、公共及文物建筑所采取的预防及保护措施及活动的价值及成效，以期改善在环境保护计划下的资源分配决策。该研究的主要成果将是开发工具，以支持FRS在以下方面的决策：建筑环境中预防和保护措施的价值；以及为消防安全干预措施分配资源。

Risks that affect the built environment and threaten human life are becoming major societal issues in the 21st century. Managing these risks and responding to emergencies such as fires, floods, and terrorist attacks is important and needs to be planned efficiently and effectively to ensure minimal impact on society. The government's White paper Our Fire and Rescue Service published in 2003 introduced reforms that refocused the role of the Fire and Rescue Service on the prevention of fires and broadened its role in dealing with other growing threats resulting from climate change and man-made disasters. As a result, a new statutory framework is now in existence that places a responsibility on the FRS to produce Integrated Risk Management Plans (IRMPs) to plan for, and respond to, a range of emergencies.The aim of IRMPs is to improve community safety and make a more effective use of FRS resources by: reducing the incidence of fires; reducing loss of life in fires and accidents; reducing the number and severity of injuries; safeguarding the environment and protecting the national heritage; and providing communities with value for money . The White paper also highlighted that new ideas for the fire and rescue service must be based on evidence from rigorous research based on the review of technologies and underpinning science on fire prevention, detection and suppression.The work in this proposal is part of the joint national initiative between the EPSRC and the Communities and Local Government (CLG) to encourage and support research on how to identify, measure and mitigate the social and economic impact that fire and other emergencies can be expected to have on individuals, communities, commerce, industry, the environment and heritage . This is in response to the government's drive to introduce changes for the Fire and Rescue Service making this proposed research timely as it contributes to the CLG's efforts to implement the FRS reforms. There has been a great deal of research on risk assessment and risk management within the context of fire and other emergencies, most of this work focused on estimating the probability of risks and their impact quantified in terms of damage and loss by modelling fire growth and spread. However the integration of the performance and effectiveness of prevention and protection measures used in buildings while developing risk management plans to allocate fire and rescue resources has received little attention. Recent efforts within the CLG, the home Office, and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister investigated risk assessment as part of the development of a process for planning Fire Service Emergency Cover (FSEC). Part of this work resulted in the development of a toolkit to assess risk, plan response, and model the consequences of resource deployment. However the new requirements of IRMPs that need a holistic and integrated approach and focus on prevention are introducing further research challenges, these can be summarised as follows: 1. lack of evidence based methods for the assessment of the effectiveness of prevention and protection measures used in buildings; 2. difficulties in assessing and predicting property, heritage, and human loss; 3. the need for decision making tools for the cost effective allocation of prevention and protection resources. The main aim of the research in this proposal is to build on the work by the CLG and investigate the value and effectiveness of prevention and protection measures and activities used in commercial, public and heritage buildings with the view of improving decision making on the allocation of resources within the context of IRMP. The main outcome of he research will be the development of tools that will support the FRS in decision making regarding: the value of prevention and protection measures in the built environment; and the allocation of resources for fire safety interventions.