One good starting point would be:
http://www.es.mq.edu.au/NHRC/nhqv4i3.html
and look for the article entitled "Damage Scales".
As well, following Andrew Hart's message to this list about landslide
intensity scales, he and I discussed some aspects of the meaning of
intensity. Although the intensity or magnitude of an event as measured by
natural criteria is certainly correlated somewhat with the impact on
humanity (i.e. the intensity of magnitude of the damage caused by that
event), the gap between the two can be rather large. As well, the issue of
classifying damage to the environment from natural phenomena raises
questions about labelling such impacts as positive and negative.
Therefore, knowing the purpose of "measuring a hazard" is important before
measurements are carried out, since translating from the hazardous natural
phenomenon to its effects on humanity is challenging. Furthermore, at times
the hazardous natural phenomenon cannot be measured while it occurs, hence
data (e.g. volume of material displaced) must be collected afterwards which
could form the basis of the hazard measurement scale or which could be used
to calculate the event's characteristics (e.g. potential energy converted to
kinetic energy or maximum material velocity).
For predictive capability, such characteristics may then have to be
converted to a scale of potential impact on humanity (e.g. force applied to
buildings or number of casualties) which is fraught with difficulty. These
tasks are not easy, but any discussion or advice on how to approach these
problems would be very much appreciated.
Thank you for your time,
Ilan
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