What are Global Active Hazards?

A hazard is an incident, e.g., earthquake, volcano, tornado, etc., that has reached a threshold where it has become a significant danger to life and property. DAE’s DaaS provides global hazard information. Hazard as a data object has three primary definitions:

Properties	Definitions
Type	This property defines what kind of hazard it is. Examples of hazard types include Earthquakes, Wildfires, Tropical Storms, etc. Each hazard type has a set of associated data layers that help put the hazard into context. For example, the United States Geological Society’s ShakeMap helps both users and automated processes understand the impact of an earthquake.
Severity	This value represents how dangerous is the hazard. In order of least to most severe the possible values are TERMINATION, INFORMATION, ADVISORY, WATCH, and WARNING.
Category	Typically an ongoing hazard is an event. However, if the threat requires a significant response after the initial impact, the category can be switch to a RESPONSE. The possible values for the hazard category are EVENT, EXERCISE, OTHER, and RESPONSE.

When viewing a hazard in the DisasterAWARE application the symbol associated with a hazard will be a composite of these three values. The icon in the center of the symbol is the hazard type. The type of geometry around the icon indicates its category. For example, events are symbolized by circles. This is commonly referred to as the "halo".The color of the "halo" indicates its severity. For example, WARNING level hazards have a red color "halo" to indicate they are the most urgent.