Hazus: FEMA’s Methodology for Estimating Potential Losses from Disasters

Source: http://www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/hazus/

FEMA’s Methodology for Estimating Potential Losses from Disasters

Hazus is a nationally applicable standardized methodology that contains models for estimating potential losses from earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes. Hazus uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology to estimate physical, economic, and social impacts of disasters. It graphically illustrates the limits of identified high-risk locations due to earthquake, hurricane, and floods. Users can then visualize the spatial relationships between populations and other more permanently fixed geographic assets or resources for the specific hazard being modeled, a crucial function in the pre-disaster planning process.

Hazus is used for mitigation and recovery as well as preparedness and response. Government planners, GIS specialists, and emergency managers use Hazus to determine losses and the most beneficial mitigation approaches to take to minimize them. Hazus can be used in the assessment step in the mitigation planning process, which is the foundation for a community's long term strategy to reduce disaster losses and break the cycle of disaster damage, reconstruction, and repeated damage. Being ready will aid in recovery after a natural disaster.

As the number of Hazus users continues to increase, so do the types of uses. Increasingly, Hazus is being used by states and communities in support of risk assessments, perform economic loss scenarios for certain natural hazards, and rapid needs assessments during hurricane response. Other communities are using Hazus to increase hazard awareness. Successful uses of Hazus are profiled under Mitigation and Recovery and Preparedness and Response. Emergency managers have also found these map templates helpful to support rapid impact assessment and disaster response.

Hazus Software

Hazus software is a powerful risk assessment methodology for analyzing potential losses from floods, hurricane winds, and earthquakes. In Hazus, current scientific and engineering knowledge is coupled with the latest geographic information systems (GIS) technology to produce estimates of hazard-related damage before, or after, a disaster occurs.

Potential loss estimates analyzed in Hazus include:

•Physical damage to residential and commercial buildings, schools, critical facilities, and infrastructure;

•Economic loss, including lost jobs, business interruptions, repair and reconstruction costs; and

•Social impacts, including estimates of shelter requirements, displaced households, and population exposed to scenario floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes.

ESRI (UK)'s CrimeAnalyst 1.6 Built around ArcGIS 9.3

ESRI's United Kingdom (UK) subsidiary has launched CrimeAnalyst version 1.6, GIS software for creating, analyzing, and publishing crime statistics in line with the UK government's recent crime mapping green paper requirements.

CrimeAnalyst 1.6 reportedly helps police and other law enforcement organizations collect, combine, visualize, analyze, and share crime information in real-time, delivering in-depth, live location-based intelligence in line with the UK's National Intelligence Model (NIM) framework.

CrimeAnalyst 1.6 uses the latest version of ESRI's GIS software, ArcGIS 9.3, enabling the software to interact with Web applications such as Microsoft Live or Google Maps and online viewers including Geowise's Instant Atlas, according to ESRI (UK).

Additional updates to software include:

• streamlined install and licensing
• quicker hotspot crime mapping results, reportedly allowing analysts to interrogate specific data for longer periods or for wider geographical areas in the same time
• improved support for working on international projections

ESRI (UK)'s CrimeAnalyst is already in use by the law enforcement community in Canada and Switzerland, with strong interest across Europe and South America, according to the company.

Source: http://www.gpsworld.com/gis/gis-and-mapping/news/esri-uk039s-crimeanalyst-16-built-around-arcgis-93-8011

4.1 Magnitude Earthquake hit San Jose Area

The following link of USGS provides Real Time Mapping of incidences of Earthquakes in California and Nevada:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Maps/special/California_Nevada.php
Earthquake Details This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

Magnitude	4.1
Date-Time	Saturday, January 08, 2011 at 00:10:16 UTC Friday, January 07, 2011 at 04:10:16 PM at epicenter Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location	37.288°N, 121.663°W
Depth	7.1 km (4.4 miles)
Region	NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Distances	15 km (10 miles) E (90°) from Seven Trees, CA 17 km (10 miles) ESE (121°) from Alum Rock, CA 18 km (11 miles) N (354°) from Morgan Hill, CA 21 km (13 miles) ESE (106°) from San Jose City Hall, CA
Location Uncertainty	horizontal +/- 0.1 km (0.1 miles); depth +/- 0.3 km (0.2 miles)
Parameters	Nph= 97, Dmin=3 km, Rmss=0.06 sec, Gp= 68°, M-type=regional moment magnitude (Mw), Version=5
Source	California Integrated Seismic Net: USGS Caltech CGS UCB UCSD UNR
Event ID	nc71506865

Mapping Crime: Principle and Practice

In the following Google Doc you will find the book "Mapping Crime: Principle and Practice" by Keith Harries, Ph.D.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B72ou-j6Wd_eMTIzZjhlNzctMTQ2My00ZTczLTk0OWMtYzA3NGIyNTg4NDFk&hl=en


The original website for download of this book is also available in the following link:

http://www.ncjrs.gov/html/nij/mapping/pdf.html