Modeling community vulnerability to hazardous materials using geographic information systems

During the past decade, society has become increasingly concerned with the manufacture, storage, transportation, and disposal of hazardous materials. In the United States incidents involving unintentional releases of hazardous materials into the environment occur frequently. Useful steps include: identifying the hazards present in the community and defining the hazard zone associated with each substance, and identifying the population distribution to be superimposed on the hazard zone map, along with the various social and economic characteristics of the population. This paper discusses a recent project at UCLA using a grid-based geographic information system and building a spatial model for risk-assessment using these data. -from Author