Hazards Risk Assessment Methodology for Emergency Managers: A Standardized Framework for Application

The public and the decision and policy makers who serve themtoo often have a view of community risks that is influenced and distorted significantlyby media exposure and common misconceptions. The regulators and managers, responsible forplanning and coordination of a community's mitigation, preparedness, response and recoveryefforts, are originated from a variety of disciplines and levels of education. Not only mustthese individuals deal with the misconceptions of their communities, but also frequently lacka basic methodology for the assessment of risks. The effective planning of mitigation andresponse are, however, directly dependent upon the understanding of the complexities, types,and nature of risks faced by the community, determining the susceptible areas, and conceptualizinghuman vulnerability.In this study, a review of the existing literature on both theconceptual underpinnings of risk and its assessment is attempted. A standardized framework is proposedfor use by all emergency managers, regardless of training or education. This frameworkconsists of the numerical ranking of the frequency of the event in the community, multiplied bya numerical ranking of the severity or magnitude of an event in a given community, based upon thepotential impact characteristics of a `worst-case' scenario. This figure is then multipliedby a numerical ranking indicating the Social Consequence; a combination of community perception ofrisk level and collective will to address the problem. The resulting score, which is notstrictly scientific, would permit emergency managers from a variety of backgrounds to comparelevels of community exposure to such disparate events as hazardous materials spills andtornadoes, and to set priorities for both mitigation efforts and for the acquisition of response needs,within the availability of community resources.     

Contents of Volume 29

Volume Contents

Contents of Volume 29     

Electrostatic compressive and rarefactive shocks and solitons in relativistic plasmas occurring in polar regions of pulsar

The electrostatic shocks and solitons are studied in weakly relativistic and collisional electron-positron-ion plasmas occurring in polar regions of pulsar. The plasma system is composed of relativistically streaming electrons, positrons while ions are taken to be stationary. Dissipative effects in the system are due to collision phenomena among the constituents of relativistic plasma. Nonlinear dynamics of the dissipation and dispersion dominated relativistic plasma systems are governed by Korteweg-de Vries Burger (KdVB) and Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equations respectively. Numerical results, exploring the effects of plasma parameters on the profile of nonlinear waves are expedited graphically for illustration. Positron to electron temperature ratio plays the role of a decisive parameter. It is noticed that compressive shocks and solitons evolve in the system if the positron to electron temperature ratio is less than a critical value. However, there exists a threshold value of positron to electron temperature ratio beyond which the system supports the rarefactive shocks and solitons. The results may have importance in the relativistic plasmas of pulsar magnetosphere.     

Dynamic Properties of Municipal Solid Waste in Bioreactor Landfills with Degradation

Bioreactor landfills are operated to enhance refuse decomposition, gas production, and waste stabilization. The major aspect of bioreactor landfill operation is the recirculation of collected leachate back through the refuse mass. Due to the presence of additional leachate and accelerated decomposition, the characteristics of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in bioreactor landfills are expected to change. About 50% of the continental United States comes under the designated seismic impact zone. The federal regulations have focused increase attention on seismic design of solid waste fills, and have mandated that the solid waste landfills located in the seismic impact zones should be designed to resist the earthquake. Accordingly, assessment of dynamic properties of landfills is one of the major geotechnical tasks in landfill engineering. In order to understand the changes in dynamic properties of bioreactor waste mass with time and decomposition, four small scale bioreactor landfills were simulated in laboratory and samples were prepared to represent each phase of decomposition. The state of decomposition was quantified by methane yield, pH, and volatile organic content (VOC). A number of Resonant Column (RC) tests were performed to evaluate the dynamic properties (stiffness and damping) of MSW. The test results indicated that the normalized shear modulus reduction and damping curves are significantly affected by the degree of decomposition. The shear modulus increased from 2.11 MPa in Phase I to 12.56 MPa in Phase IV. The increase was attributed to the breakdown of fibrous nature of solid waste particles as it degrades. Therefore, considering MSW properties to be uniform throughout the bioreactor landfill is not a reasonable assumption and the shear modulus reduction curves should be evaluated based on the degree of MSW decomposition, rather than the sample composition itself.