Communication to mitigate disasters - Research Paper Example

gger than 1.5 x 2 kilometres because we are unable to adequately control the focus of the map from http://webmap.city.burnaby.bc.ca/publicmap/viewer.htm. On the other hand, the vertical distance from 4788 Brentwood Drive is smaller than 1.5 kilometres whether northward or southward. The relatively short vertical distance attempts to offset the relatively bigger horizontal coverage of the map. On checking, however, the area covered by Figure 1 is about 6.9 square kilometres versus the 7.07 square kilometres implied by a 1.

5-kilometres radius from 4788 Brentwood Drive. Based on the formula pi x radius-squared for area, a 1.5 kilometres radius implies 7.07 square kilometres. The website http://webmap.city.burnaby.bc.ca/publicmap/viewer.htm, which is controlled and managed by the Burnaby City government, is developing a menu for estimating the population of a sector of Burnaby. However, the author conducted several hours and days of attempts to estimate the population of the area covered by Figure 1 using the menu and failed.

Possibly, the website is not yet ready to execute the population estimation function at the time of author’s attempt to access the website although the website was updated last 17 September 2010. However, if we use the latest edition of the Burnaby Quick Facts that was produced in 2008, the material documented that one square kilometre of Burnaby has a population density of 2,275.6 individuals as of 2006. Thus, it appears reasonable to estimate that the area covered by Figure 1 has a population of roughly 15,702 persons as of 2006.

Of course, we can project the population up to 2010 based on the population growth figures but there is no need for us to do that. In a 2004 report, the United Nations Development Programme defined risk as “the probability of harmful consequences or expected loss of lives, people injured, property, livelihoods, economic activity disrupted (or environment damaged) resulting from interactions between natural or