Chemical and process plants, energy facilities, oil and gas installations and industrial facilities are the potential target of physical and cyber-attacks. These may trigger cascading ‘domino’ effects such as the release of flammable, explosive, toxic or noxious substances into the environment and accidents in other areas of the plant not initially attacked.

Security-related threats could affect coasts, rivers, lakes and densely populated areas at regional and national scale. The Major Accident Reporting System reported 557 accidents in EU for the period 1990-2020; 23 of these accidents resulted in domino effects causing €1.1 billion of damages and €3.2 million of environmental damage. The European Programme for Critical Infrastructure Protection promotes the prevention, preparedness and response to terrorist attacks to energy and transport installations.