Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Universal Disaster Impact Scale, Brian James Evans

Master's Theses

When disasters occur affecting multiple communities differently, can a determination be made as to which community is in need of financial or humanitarian aid the most? This study proposes a universal disaster impact scale that will allow the impacts of a large variety of disasters, including natural and human systems failures, to be measured against one another. The Universal Disaster Impact Scale includes both quantitative and qualitative disaster impact measurements combined with an economic factor for the affected country in an equation which provides a numeric rating for the disaster. The rating is used to measure the level of need …