I thank Mr. Heath for his comments and I am certainly very interested in
further methods related to the normalisation of measurements in order to
compare the physical and socio-economic effects of various disasters--and
the translation back and forth between these.
I am not entirely convinced by the example, however, because:
(a) The spatial area of the disaster is mentioned and then
ignored. Many methodologies exist for bringing
spatial area (and other event properties and results) into
the calculations and many advantages and disadvantages could
be argued for doing so.
(b) Both disasters affected Country Z, therefore the country's
population becomes irrelevant to the calculation.
The same result could be achieved simply by dividing
250,000 (the number of people affected by X) by
90,000 (the number of people affected by Y).
A more effective example for the methodology proposed
would be for disasters in different countries or
otherwise delineated geographical areas.
(c) My understanding of "risk" (which may very well be incorrect)
is that it tends to indicate potential incidents, rather
than what has actually happened. Thus, the calculation
presented could indicate "relative risk" if X and Y were
hypothetical, future possibilities, but not if they were
events which had already happened, as implied in the problem
statement. Rather pedantic, but possibly important,
especially for communicating disaster risks and disaster
results.
Nonetheless, problems then exist with respect to the continual debate about
what is an "affected" person. Should a person who is "affected" by being
killed be weighted differently from "affected" friends and family of that
person? How is a person "affected" by losing all property, possessions, and
pets or by being displaced for two years compared with losing a child? When
a culture is destroyed, a community relocated or not rebuilt, or livelihoods
ruined, how can the "affected" collective (society or community) be measured
against or combined with the "affected" individual(s)?
To resolve such difficulties it seems that, as authors in the space have
commented before, we end up returning to Mr. Heath’s opening question:
"Isn't the question of scale related to what one is trying to measure?"
Thank you for your time,
Ilan
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