Introduction
HAZUS-MH (Hazard United States – Multi Hazard), first released in 1997, uses a standardized methodology to
estimate physical, economic and social impacts of disasters from earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and high winds.
Specifically, HAZUS-MH estimates impacts by overlaying the spatial locations of potential hazards with
structures,
population, vehicles, utilities, etc., in ArcGIS. HAZUS-MH, as part of its vulnerability assessment, creates
relationships using hydrology, hydraulic, and economic data to create relationships between annual exceedance
probability and peak discharge, discharge and stage, and stage and damage. The program has been applied in flood
mitigation, policy- making, planning or zoning, emergency planning and response, and to estimate sectoral
economic
impacts.
The key feature of the HAZUS-MH software is an extension to ArcGIS that allows for pre-processing and
visualization of outputs. HAZUS allows for three levels of analysis (basic to advanced) depending on data
availability.