Lightning Risk Assessment: A Chronological Review of Techniques

Abstract

Lightning remains a persistent cause of fatalities, structural damage, and interruption of power, data, and communication services worldwide. Techniques for quantifying lightning risk have changed rapidly as observational networks, protection standards, and computational methods advanced, yet no chronological synthesis maps how assessment practice itself has evolved. Hence, this review addresses that gap. A single-step systematic search of the Scopus database was conducted using the terms lightning, lightning risk assessment, and climate change, restricted to English-language journal articles at the final publication stage within the Engineering and Energy subject areas between 2016 and 2026. The search returned 93 primary articles. Optimal contiguous partitioning of annual output identified three phases. Phase I, Standards Consolidation (2016–2019, n = 26, 6.5 articles annually), was governed by International Electrotechnical Commission-IEC6254-268, with ground flash density supplying the exposure term. Phase II, Exposure Metric Refinement (2020–2023, n = 32, 8.0 annually), introduced Bayesian networks, spatio-temporal statistics, and assessment of previously unconsidered receptors. Phase III, Data-Driven and Asset-Specific Assessment (2024–2026, n = 35, 11.7 annually), features gradient boosting, explainable modeling, and asset-specific economic quantification. Only the 2023/2024 transition reached statistical significance (p = 0.035). Documented advances include ground strike point density exceeding flash density by up to 32 strike points per square kilometer annually, nowcasting detection probabilities approaching 98%, and lightning accounting for 24.84% of Brazilian transmission line failures. The chronology demonstrates progressive displacement of deterministic standard application by probabilistic, asset-specific inference.