HAZUS
Encyclopedia
Geographic Information System
A geographic information system, geographical information science, or geospatial information studies is a system designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, and present all types of geographically referenced data...
-based natural hazard
Natural hazard
A natural hazard is a threat of a naturally occurring event that will have a negative effect on people or the environment. Many natural hazards are interrelated, e.g. earthquakes can cause tsunamis and drought can lead directly to famine. It is possible that some natural hazards are...
loss estimation software package developed and freely distributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency
Federal Emergency Management Agency
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, initially created by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1978 and implemented by two Executive Orders...
(FEMA).
In 1997 FEMA released its first edition of a commercial off-the-shelf
Commercial off-the-shelf
In the United States, Commercially available Off-The-Shelf is a Federal Acquisition Regulation term defining a nondevelopmental item of supply that is both commercial and sold in substantial quantities in the commercial marketplace, and that can be procured or utilized under government contract...
loss and risk assessment software package
Catastrophe modeling
Catastrophe modeling is the process of using computer-assisted calculations to estimate the losses that could be sustained due to a catastrophic event such as a hurricane or earthquake...
built on GIS technology. This product was termed HAZUS97. The current version is Hazus-MH V2.0 where MH stands for 'Multi-Hazards'. Currently Hazus can model four types of hazards: flood
Flood
A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...
ing, hurricanes, coastal surge, and earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
s. The model estimates the risk in three steps. First it calculates the exposure for a selected area, second, it characterizes the level or intensity of the hazard affecting the exposed area, and third, it uses the exposed area and the hazard to calculate the potential losses in terms of economic losses, structural damage, etc.
Although it was developed with the US continent in focus, the Hazus toolset has been adopted by emergency management
Emergency management
Emergency management is the generic name of an interdisciplinary field dealing with the strategic organizational management processes used to protect critical assets of an organization from hazard risks that can cause events like disasters or catastrophes and to ensure the continuance of the...
organizations worldwide.
Requirements
Although Hazus-MH itself is free, it requires the users to have ArcGISArcGIS
ArcGIS is a suite consisting of a group of geographic information system software products produced by Esri.ArcGIS is a system for working with maps and geographic information...
with ArcView
ArcView
ArcView 3.x was a geographic information system software product produced by ESRI.-History:ArcView started as a graphical program for spatial data and maps made using ESRI's other software products. Over time more and more functionality was added to ArcView and it became a real GIS program capable...
license level. http://www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/hazus/hz_reqmnts.shtm
In addition, ArcGIS Spatial Analyst extension is required for Flood Model.
Advanced analysis
- Mapping results from the Advanced Engineering Building Module (AEBM) for earthquake hazards Salt Lake Community - a descriptive workaround
External links
- FEMA Hazus website
- USEHAZUS An All Hazus Web Space
- Hazus website