What is RISK?

1. What is RISK? Robin Autenrieth, Professor Dept. of Civil Engineering Dept. of Env. & Occup. Health Summarized by Priscilla Metting And Richard Powers

2. Just How Risky are you? Please take the Survey. Answers: Give yourself 1 point if your anwers agree with this key: 1. f 2. f 3.T 4.T 5.T 6.f 7.f 8.T 9.T 10.f 11.T 12.f 13.f 14.T 15.f 16.f 17.T 18.T 19.f 20.T Survey Says: 16-20 You’re probably just back from hang gliding in the Himalayas. 11-15 You’re a sushi eater who’d skip the trip to Japan. 6-10 Don’t forget the umbrella. It might rain. 0-5 So, how long have you been in life insurance? Source: Dr. Robin Autenrieth, Dept. of Civil Engineering; Texas A&M University

3. Risk • possibility of loss or injury • the degree of probability of such loss (Webster's dictionary online)

4. Risk • Since risk means the the degree of probability of an injury or loss; it follows that risk can be quantified • Often to a very precise degree

5. For Example: • It has been found that traveling 300 miles by car will increase your chance of death by accident by 10-6 ( or 1 in a million)

6. Which of these activitieswould cause you to increase your risk of dying by 10-6 ? Traveling 300 miles by jet Traveling 6 minutes by canoe Spending 1 hour in a coal mine

7. Which of these other activities increase your risk of death by accident by 1 in one million? (cont.) Traveling 1000 miles by jet would increase your chances of dying in an accident by 1 in a million, but traveling 300 miles would increase it less than that. So, in terms of risk of death, flying is safer than driving.

8. Which of these activities would cause you to increase your risk of dying by 10-6? (cont.) • Traveling 6 minutes by canoe is the correct answer. • Believe it or not your risk of dying as a result of an accident is greater spending just a few minutes in a canoe than it is flying from San Antonio to Harlingen and back.

9. So is A Coal Mine Safer than a Canoe? • Spending 3 hours in a coal mine would result in a 1 in a million increase in your chance of death by accident, but there are other risks with coal mines… • Spending an hour in a coal mine increases your chance of death as a result of black lung disease by one in one million

10. Which of these is more risky? • Living 2 days in New York City or Boston • Living with a cigarette smoker for 2 months • Living within 20 miles of a nuclear power plant for 20 years

11. It’s a Tie! • Living in Boston or New York City for just 2 days will increase your risk of dying as a result of air pollution by one in one million • Living with a smoker for just 2 months will result in the same risk increase of dying of lung cancer or heart disease

12. What about the Nuclear Power Plant? • You would have to live within 20 miles of a nuclear power plant for 150 years to increase your risk of dying by cancer caused by radiation by as much as living in New York or Boston for 2 days or living with a smoker for 2 months • You’ll probably be dead in 150 years anyway!

13. ? • If living with a cigarette smoker for 2 months increases the likelihood that you will die from cancer by 1 in one million; What would living with a smoker for 18 years do to your chances?

14. Answer: • 2 months X 6 = 1 year X 18 = 18 years 6(18) = 108 so 108 x 10-6 or 1.08 x 10-4 Or increase your chances of dying of lung cancer or heart disease by a little over 1/10,000

15. Aerial view of capped area of Sharon Steel Superfund site Does this Sound like much? • If the chances of winning the lottery were better than 1 in 10,000 wouldn’t we all be playing ? • What happens when you combine this with other risks in life?

16. Response A Direct Relationship shows that a unit increase in dose yields a constant increase in response. Ex. If you put $1 into a coke machine- you will get 1 soda. If you double the amount you put in you will get 2 sodas. If you put $5 in, you can get 5 times as many sodas as you could for $1 , etc. Dose or Exposure Risk is sometime quantified by graphing with a dose vs. Response Comparison

17. Other types of graphs • A concave relationship shows the initial dose having a great effect and that effect leveling off as the dosage increases Response Example: When you are really thirsty, that first drink of beverage goes a long way toward quenching your thirst. Each additional drink helps quench it also, but none of those are quite as good as the first one. Dose or Exposure

18. A Convex Relationship shows a small effect of initial doses and that effect increasing with more exposure Types of Graphs Response As you begin weight training, there will be little visible effects after just a couple of days in the weightroom. However, after a couple of months of working out regularly, the visible effects become very noticable Dose or Exposure

19. A Threshold Relationship shows no effect at all for beginning doses but a direct relationship when the dose or exposure reaches a certain level Types of Graphs Response Example: Exposure to certain pesticides will have no harmful effect on humans until a certain level, where after that harmful effects will vary directly with additional exposure Dose or Exposure

20. Concave Relationship Direct Relationship Response Response Dose or Exposure Dose or Exposure Convex Relationship Response Threshold Relationship Response Dose or Exposure Dose or Exposure Which graph shows the relationship between the number of raffle tickets that you buy and your chances of winning the raffle prize?

21. Concave Relationship Direct Relationship Response Response Dose or Exposure Dose or Exposure Convex Relationship Response Threshold Relationship Response Dose or Exposure Dose or Exposure If you can drop three zeros on homework assignments in this class; which graph shows the relationship between zeros and your grade?

22. Concave Relationship Direct Relationship Response Response Dose or Exposure Dose or Exposure Convex Relationship Response Threshold Relationship Response Dose or Exposure Dose or Exposure Which graph would show the relationship between the amount of water that a plant gets and how much it grows?

23. Concave Relationship Direct Relationship Response Response Dose or Exposure Dose or Exposure Convex Relationship Response Threshold Relationship Response Dose or Exposure Dose or Exposure A steroid nasal spray becomes more effective as the medicine builds up in your system. Which graph indicates this dose vs response relationship?

24. What is GIS? Geographical Information Systems Francisco Olivera, Ph.D., P.E. Department of Civil Engineering Texas A&M University Summarized by Priscilla Metting and Richard Powers

25. What is GIS? • Geography is information about the earth's surface and the objects found on it, as well as a framework for organizing knowledge. GIS is a technology that manages, analyzes, and disseminates geographic knowledge. •  GIS links location to information (such as people to addresses, buildings to parcels, or streets within a network) and layers that information to give you a better understanding of how it all interrelates. You choose what layers to combine based on your purpose.

26. United State Geological Society • Check this out! • www.usgs.gov • To get to the Seamless Data Distribution System, National Center for Earth Resources Observation and Science go www.usgs.gov and scroll down and click on the Seamless Data Distribution link

27. Why Use GIS? • GIS is much more than mapping software. When deployed with a clear strategy, GIS is a technology that can change an organization fundamentally and positively. GIS goes beyond mining data to give you the tools to interpret that data, allowing you to see relationships, patterns, or trends intuitively that are not possible to see with traditional charts, graphs, and spreadsheets.

28. Delay between Sensing and Response inWater Contamination Events Elizabeth C. Bristow and Kelly Brumbelow Department of Civil Engineering Texas A&M University Summarized by Priscilla Metting and Richard Powers

29. TVDBC: A Five-Stage Model for Response Delay • T – Transmission • V – Verification • D – Drafting • B – Broadcasting • C- Compliance

30. Transmission-Delay This portion of Phase I delay is modeled as:

31. Verification-Delay • Phase II delay DIIcan be calculated from the exponential model as: Figure 2. Graph of the cumulative probability distribution for Phase II delay for the thirteen cases listed in Table 1. The solid line is an empirical function, and the dashed line is an exponential distribution fit to these data.

32. Drafting-Delay

33. Broadcasting-Delay • This model is specified by the regression equations: Example of regression model:

34. Compliance-Delay • Unfortunately, this phase is difficult to study directly. • The Lindell and Perry model for transients’ evacuation preparation times is:

35. Compliance • In order to apply the Lindell and Perry equation in a probabilistic model, it is manipulated so that Phase V delay DV becomes parameters a and b are 0.35 and 3.00, respectively, for the “transient” case

36. REFERENCES Books and Articles • Bristow, Elizabeth and Brumbelow, Kelly: Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University “Delay between Sensing and Response in Water Contamination Events” • Kammen, Daniel and Hassenzahl, David: Should We Risk It? Web Resources • www.gis.com • www.epa.gov • www.decisioneering.com • www.riskworld.com • http://www.usgs.gov/ • http://seamless.usgs.gov/ Personal Consultations • Dr. Robin Autenrieth: Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University • Dr. Kelly Brumbelow: Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University • Dr. Francisco Olivera: Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University