The vulnerability of the European air traffic network to spatial hazards

102Citations
Citations of this article
89Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

This article is free to access.

Abstract

The 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano had a devastating effect on the European air traffic network, preventing air travel throughout most of Europe for 6 days (Oroian in ProEnvironment 3:5-8, 2010). The severity of the disruption was surprising as previous research suggests that this type of network should be tolerant to random hazard (Albert et al. in Nature 406(6794):378-382, 2000; Strogatz in Nature 410(6825):268-276, 2001). The source of this hazard tolerance lies in the degree distribution of the network which, for many real-world networks, has been shown to follow a power law (Albert et al. in Nature 401(6749):130-131, 1999; Albert et al. in Nature 406(6794):378-382, 2000). In this paper, we demonstrate that the ash cloud was unexpectedly disruptive because it was spatially coherent rather than uniformly random. We analyse the spatial dependence in air traffic networks and demonstrate how the combination of their geographical distribution and their network architectures jeopardises their inherent hazard tolerance. © 2011 The Author(s).

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Wilkinson, S. M., Dunn, S., & Ma, S. (2012). The vulnerability of the European air traffic network to spatial hazards. Natural Hazards, 60(3), 1027–1036. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-011-9885-6

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free