School: Engineering

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

  • Unit Title

    Environmental and Process Risk Management
  • Unit Code

    ENS5161
  • Year

    2025
  • Enrolment Period

    1
  • Version

    3
  • Credit Points

    15
  • Full Year Unit

    N
  • Mode of Delivery

    On Campus
  • Unit Coordinator

    Dr Muhammad Rizwan AZHAR

Description

This unit introduces students to the preliminary planning phase of an industrial development, taking into account safety to workers and the surrounding community, and the broader environmental and social impact of the development. The broad environmental and social issues relevant to planning the location, technology, size and layout of a process, plant or development, incorporating the relevant risk assessment methodologies and compliance with relevant risk and environmental legislation will be considered. Incorporation of the broader issues of sustainability and environmental impact in the design of processes and infrastructure using techniques such as environmental costing, quantitative technical, human & ecological risk assessment and social impact analysis will be emphasised.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Assess consequences from acute system and human failures as well as from chronic emissions through review of physical effects and application of relevant vulnerability models.
  2. Evaluate process designs and their operability using relevant hazard identification and risk management methods.
  3. Assess Environmental Impact Statements and justify evaluated risks, using knowledge of government standards and regulatory frameworks.
  4. Perform a risk analysis of a real-case scenario and assess identified risk control systems for justification or recommendation of further risk control systems.
  5. Communicate human and environmental impacts for proposed developments to both general and technically competent audiences in written and oral formats.

Unit Content

  1. Application of risk control measures to drive risks to ALARP.
  2. Risk management methodologies (e.g. AS31000) that include hazard identification, consequence and frequency analysis, risk analysis and assessment.
  3. Risk acceptance criteria and their application in decision making.
  4. Risk treatment and the risk reduction hierarchy, and the concept of ALARP (As Low As Reasonably Possible).
  5. Use of modelling in consequence analysis applied to fire, explosion, toxic releases and their impact on vulnerable resources, via vulnerability models.
  6. Use of hazard identification methodologies such as HAZOP, FMEA or Concept Hazard Analysis.
  7. Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) and its application to simple systems.
  8. Environmental impact statements (EIS), their utility and construction.
  9. Approaches to risk treatment in the process industries: role of reliability, redundancy, defence in depth, safety instrumented systems and emergency response.
  10. The societal and industrial context of risk management. Why risk is important and the associated legislative and regulatory frameworks currently in place. The dimensions of risk.

Learning Experience

Students will attend on campus classes as well as engage in learning activities through ECU's LMS

JoondalupMount LawleySouth West (Bunbury)
Semester 113 x 2 hour lectureNot OfferedNot Offered
Semester 113 x 1 hour tutorialNot OfferedNot Offered

For more information see the Semester Timetable

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescriptionValue
AssignmentEvaluation of an environmental impact assessment15%
AssignmentEvaluation of an industrial accident investigation report15%
TestMid-semester test20%
Examination ^End-of-semester examination50%

^ Mandatory to Pass


Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

Plagiarism

Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).

Unauthorised collaboration (collusion)

Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).

Contract cheating

Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.

Cheating in an exam

Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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