A University of Arizona researcher has created a new system to dramatically show American cities their relative level of vulnerability to bioterrorism.
Walter W. Piegorsch, an expert on environmental risk, has placed 132 major cities from Albany, N.Y., to Youngstown, Ohio on a color-coded map that identifies their level of risk based on factors including critical industries, ports, railroads, population, natural environment and other factors.
Piegorsch is the director of a new UA graduate program in interdisciplinary statistics and a professor of mathematics in the College of Science, as well as a member of the UAs BIO5 Institute.
The map marks high-risk areas as red (for example, Houston and, surprisingly, Boise, ID), midrange risk as yellow (San Francisco) and lower risk as green (Tucson). The map shows a wide swath of highest-risk urban areas running from New York down through the Southeast and into Texas. Boise is the only high-risk urban area that lies outside the swath.
The model employs what risk experts call a benchmark vulnerability metric, which shows risk managers each citys level of risk for urban terrorism.
Piegorsch says terrorism vulnerability involves three dimensions of risk social aspects, natural hazards and construction of the city and its infrastructure.
He concludes that the allocation of funds for preparedness and response to terrorism should take into account these factors of vulnerability.
Our capacity to adequately prepare for and respond to these vulnerabilities varies widely across the country, especially in urban areas, he wrote in an article about the research. Piegorsch argues that any one-size-fits-all strategy of resource allocation and training ignores the reality of the geographic differences identified in his study. Such failures, he says, would limit urban areas abilities to prepare for and respond to terrorist events.
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| Contact: Deborah Daun ddaun@email.arizona.edu 520-626-2059 University of Arizona Source:Eurekalert |