This is my exercise from Geography class. It is due tonight at 10:30 but it is fairly easy. It should take up about 2 hours. I can't finish it because I am going to be way too busy. I already did some work for question 1 so that should give a start to the experts.
Exercise 2: Assessing and Mitigating the Hurricane Risk Name:_____Jinyang Du___ GEOG 3402 Natural Hazards – Spring 2019 Exercise 3: Assessing and Mitigating the Hurricane Risk in Coastal Florida (13 pts) This exercise asks you to decide where to invest in hazard reduction. In it you invest a given amount to achieve the most hazard protection. The state of Florida has put together a pool of $100 million to build storm surge protection along selected reaches of the Florida coast. This is not enough money to protect the entire coast from hurricane storm surge, so they have asked you to conduct a risk assessment to determine which counties should be given priority for storm surge protection so as to allocate the mitigation effort to get the most benefit (i.e., the most hazard reduction). Here’s what you need to know to conduct the analysis: · The probability of a hurricane passing in the vicinity of each county (likelihood) · The number of people (population) in that county (exposure or consequence) · The length of the coastline in that county · The cost of protection per unit of coastline In the accompanying spreadsheet (Exercise 3 data), we have given you the county names, length of coastline, population and probability of a hurricane for all Atlantic and Gulf Coast counties in the U.S., and you will find the Florida counties starting about line 110 (shaded in white). Probability is given as a percent and as a decimal, use the decimal form to calculate risk. These data come from a hurricane risk assessment tool developed originally by Prof. William Gray at Colorado State University and further developed by Phil Klotzbach and Michael Bell (see: https://tropical.colostate.edu/). This exercise uses data only for the 34 Florida that counties include coastline (see map below), which are highlighted in white on the spreadsheet. Excel TIP: If it does not happen when you open the file, freeze the top row on the worksheet so that the column names stay visible even when you scroll down to the Florida section. And, keep in mind that you can make all the calculations to answer the below questions in the worksheet, for example by adding a column for Risk Factor and writing an equation to multiply one column by another. We labeled two additional worksheets (tabs) where you can do this. 1. Recognizing that risk is “probability times consequence,” use the probability and population to create a risk factor, defined as: R (risk factor) = P (probability of event) * C (consequence of event). We use population as a measure of people and property that could be harmed by the hurricane (thus the consequence). Calculate this to two decimal places and keep all numbers at two decimal places. Now list the top ten riskiest Florida counties in order of decreasing risk factor (that is, highest R on top), and give their risk factor value (note: it will be helpful to copy the Florida values into a new worksheet tab and then use Excel’s built-in sort function): (2 pts) COUNTY NAME RISK VALUE 2. Of the ten counties, which has the highest probability of a hurricane? (1 pt) 3. Explain why the county most likely to experience a hurricane is not the one with the greatest risk factor? (2 pts) 4. Since you must allocate protection monies to do the most good, the length of the coastline to be protected and the number of people who gain that protection come into play. The money is insufficient to protect all areas, so you should determine the population to be protected per unit length of coastline (divide the population of each county by the total coastline length for that county, giving you the number of people per kilometer of coastline). Now re-order your list of the ten most risky counties (from Q 1) by the ratio of population to coastline length, and list them in descending order (from more people per coastline length to fewer people per coastline length): (2 pts) COUNTY NAME POP/COASTLINE RATIO 4b. What are the geographical weaknesses with the methods used in question 4 to access the density of people and property at risk? What information would we need to improve this calculation? Answer is a short paragraph. (2 pts) 5. It costs $250,000 per km of coastline to engineer some form of surge protection, a mixture of beach sand replenishment, “rip-rap” rock installation, and concrete seawall construction. Of the counties with the highest population-to-coastline-length ratios for protection (from Question 4), list the ones you can fully protect. You are to go down the list from question 4 in descending order, assuming the counties with the greatest number of people per kilometer of coastline are the most important. For the money to be allocated, keep a cumulative sum of money spent, such that each additional county protected adds to the cumualtive total. (Keep in mind that you will run out of your $100 million before you fully protect all ten counties. Only list the ones you can protect fully and remember you won’t necessarily use all the blanks and maybe not quite all the money. (2 pts) County 6. Now take a minute and reflect on your results, and explain in a short essay (150 words or less) to the Florida state legislature why a county with a high probability of experiencing a hurricane, and/or a high risk, might not get protection. Then recommend ways to reduce this gap in protection policy. (2 pts)