Research on generation paths of production safety accidents in urban gas pipeline networks: A fuzzy set qualitative Comparative analysis (fsQCA) based on Chinese data

The production safety accidents in urban gas pipeline networks of China have shown a frequent trend in recent years, which has become the main obstacle to the high-quality development of urban gas industry. In this paper, based on 38 typical accidents that occurred in mainland China from 2012 to 2022, the fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) method was applied to explore the accident generation paths. We identified seven condition variables and one result variable, then six condition configurations were derived through the fsQCA method to classify the accident generation paths into four types: "illegal operation", "Equipment failure", "third-party activities damage", and "multiple risk coupling". The results show that: (1) Interrupting the generation paths of accidents caused by illegal operation and multiple risk coupling not only requires local governments and regulatory departments to strengthen safety supervision, but also requires gas enterprises to improve their safety management organizational structures and safety production management systems; (2) Strengthening daily inspection, maintenance, and risk monitoring of urban gas pipeline networks is the core of curbing accidents caused by equipment failure; (3) Deepening cooperation between gas enterprises and third-party units is the key to prevent and control accidents caused by third-party activities damage; (4) Local governments and gas enterprises should strengthen cooperation to improve the effectiveness of accident prevention and control by building the risk synergetic governance model. This study provides theoretical guidance for preventing production safety accidents in urban gas pipeline networks of China.