Coupling and causation analysis of risk influencing factors for navigational accidents in ice-covered waters

Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2025

Accidents tend to be formed by several factors coupled together, and the special geographic location and environment of the ice-covered waters create a more complex coupling relationship among risk influencing factors (RIFs) of navigational accidents. In order to study the coupling and causation relationship among the RIFs of navigational accidents in ice-covered waters such as the Arctic regions, this paper proposes a framework for coupling and causation analysis of navigational accidents in ice-covered waters, by incorporating the N-K model and accident causal chain theory. Firstly, the RIFs inducing navigational accidents are identified from five aspects, including weather condition (WC), sea condition (SC), ice condition (IC), unsafe condition (UC) and unsafe acts (UA), based on the 40 collected maritime accidents investigation reports (MAIRs) in ice-covered waters. Then, the N-K model is used to construct the risk coupling model and calculate the risk coupling interaction values under the 32 coupling scenarios among RIFs and the 12 coupling scenarios between RIFs and navigational accidents. At last, the coupling relationship among RIFs is analyzed and accident causal chain theory is introduced to analyze the causation relationship between RIFs and navigational accidents. The results show that the more categories of RIFs participate in the coupling, the higher risk is formed by the coupling. The “UC-UA” coupling scenario is more likely to be coupled with other factors, and the “IC-UC-UA” and “SC-IC-UC-UA” coupling scenarios are more likely to lead to accidents. Sea condition is the most important environmental factor affecting the unsafe condition and the unsafe acts, and the unsafe acts are still the main cause of the accidents.