The UC Berkeley Geographic Information Science Center proposes to develop maps and data, and provide advice to advance the UC Office of the President, Welfare Policy Research Project's (WPRP) pilot project with Alameda County.  This pilot project entails conducting one earthquake hazard assessment of the County's In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) and foster-care populations.
The essential steps we envision for ourselves are three: (1) to work with the Alameda County and/or the California Office of Emergency Services (OES) to identify appropriate earthquake hazard zone assessments that they or others have developed for an earthquake along the Hayward Fault, (2) to overlay (intersect) the selected assessments with the address locations of the vulnerable populations, and (3) to work with WPRP and county officials on data processing and management techniques to make the resulting data more widely available and useful to a broader range of county officials and emergency planners.
With respect to the first step, earthquake hazard assessment methodology has many empirical and theoretical unknowns.  We begin with the assumption that county or state OES officials can provide us with their preferred and definitive hazard zone information fro the Hayward Fault as it affects Alameda County.  If this is not feasible, we will -- subject to the budge limitations of this project -- adapt one or more hazard assessments developed by other authoritative federal, state, and/or local agencies, e.g., USGS, ABAG, State of California Department of Mines and Geology (also known as "Alquist-Priolo Hazard Zones"), and use available methodologies, e.g., HAZUS, to combine these assessments. In addition, building construction type greatly affects the damage potential of earthquakes and will investigate the availability and integration of such information.
With respect to the second step, we will overlay hazard maps with the address locations provided to us, creating a working prototype map that shows the hazard status of each location.
Finally, with respect to the third step, there are a number of mapping and information management issues -- some anticipated, others unknown. For example, in reviewing the initial maps, county officials may wish to include additional data elements, e.g., the location of critical facilities and/or infrastructure. In addition, questions may arise as to how best to format, disseminate, and update the data -- so that county and other officials can make optimum use of the information we create.  These sorts of issues will arise in the course of the project, and we will work with WPRP and Alameda County officials in an iterative fashion to identify them and, if possible, to address them.
Principal Investigator:
John Radke
Contact Information:
Tel: 510.643.5995
Fax: 510.643.3412
Email: ratt@gisc.berkeley.edu
Funding Information:
Welfare Policy Research Project
Start Date: 2/28/08