Safety of physical assets: A ranking method and Its GIS implementation

Abstract

Safety is a relevant issue in many contexts of the real life. This paper proposes a scientifically robust method for the identification of the top-N list of relevant physical assets that can be used as input, by an administrative unit (e.g., a province, a region, etc.), for the definition of a selective monitoring strategy of the safety state of such assets, with respect to the exposure to the landslide hazard. The ranking represents a conceptual tool for narrowing down a global problem to smaller, highest risk, geographic areas where the management of the disaster risk is most crucial. To be applied, the method needs data about the geographic locations of the physical assets to be kept under control and data about the geomorphology of the underlying terrain.