What we do
We serve government, utilities, manufacturing, finance, insurance, and real-estate entities concerned with risk from natural and man-made disasters. Some products and services:
 | Seismic vulnerability models for use in HAZUS and proprietary loss software. |
| Develop open risk models: open-source software, open methods, and open data. (Link leads to http://www.risk-agora.org.) |
| Worldwide hazard modeling and multi-hazard risk assessment. |
| Multihazard risk management for individual facilities, portfolios, and networks. |
| Decision support using cost-benefit ratio, IRR, certainty equivalent, with single- or multi-attribute objectives. |
We design risk-management alternatives and perform economic and life-safety analyses on the basis of cost-benefit ratio, internal rate of return, certainty equivalent, cost per statistical life saved, and other formal decision bases. We provide decision-making information that is understandable, defensible, and actionable. We provide expert independent review of risk assessments.
SPA in the news
October 2009: SPA contributes to KPIX-TV's article, Dispelling the Myths of the Loma Prieta Earthquake. Click here for the 6-minute video.
May 2009: SPA and Karen Clark & Co. investigate a risk model for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. Click here for the Business Insurance news article.
November 2008: SPA develops ROVER for FEMA. SPA pilot tested the Rapid Observation of Vulnerability and Estimation of Risk (ROVER) software with the Los Angeles Unified School District, as part of LAUSD's participation in the Great Southern California ShakeOut. ROVER is open-source software for Windows Mobile smartphone and PC to implement and enhance the FEMA 154 tool for pre-earthquake rapid visual of buildings for potential seismic risk. ROVER also implements and enhances the ATC-20 post-earthquake building safety evaluation procedure. ROVER will ultimately integrate with the US Geological Survey's free ShakeCast software. Among other tasks, ShakeCast watches USGS Internet servers for notice of the occurrence of earthquakes that can damage a user's portfolio of facilities, estimates safety tag color, and automatically alerts users with its damage estimates via email or SMS. In 2 days surrounding the ShakeOut, LAUSD inspectors tested both the pre- and post-earthquake modules of ROVER on a campus of school buildings in the San Fernando Valley, demonstrating that the system works and can facilitate LAUSD's efforts to manage its seismic risk. ROVER has been developed in collaboration with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Applied Technology Council, and Instrumental Software Technologies, Inc. For a brief overview, click here. For more detail, click here.
October 2008: SPA leads the development of OpenRisk. SPA continues to develop and release OpenRisk applications, in collaboration with the US Geological Survey, the Southern California Earthquake Center, and Instrumental Software Technologies, Inc. OpenRisk is a suite of object-oriented, web- and GUI-enabled, open-source, and freely available software code for conducting multihazard risk analysis. The resulting body of code and applications are all referred to as OpenRisk. For a brief overview, click here. For more detail, see www.risk-agora.org.
August 2008. SPA announces SPARE (SPA Risk Estimation). SPARE is a new quick analysis application for estimating vulnerability functions. SPARE is the first module in SPA's development of a general risk analysis suite of applications.
June 2008. SPA helps to develop the ShakeOut scenario. Scientists unveiled a hypothetical scenario describing how a magnitude 7.8 Southern California earthquake--similar to the recent earthquake in China--would impact the region, causing loss of lives and massive damage to infrastructure, including critical transportation, power, and water systems. Keith Porter led the overall assessment of physical damages, while Charles Scawthorn performed the analysis of fire following earthquake. In the scenario, the earthquake kills 1800 people, injures 50,000, causes $200 billion in damage, and has long-lasting social and economic consequences. One third of the economic loss is attributable to fire following earthquake, another third to shake-related property loss, and most of the rest to indirect losses associated with the interruption of water supply. Fatalities are approximately equally attributable to fire and shake-related damage. This is the most comprehensive analysis ever of what a major Southern California earthquake would mean, and is the scientific framework for what was the largest earthquake preparedness drill in California history, on November 13, 2008. More than 5 million people participated, including businesses, schools, numerous government agencies, and private citizens. Further information can be found here. SPA's analysis of fire following earthquake can be found here.
Contacts
Charles Scawthorn: (415) 315-9921,
Keith Porter: (626) 233-9758
- Postal address
- 2501 Bellaire St, Denver CO 80207