Bioterrorism in San Fransisco Eric Manalac University of California, Berkeley Client – CDC/DOD Problem: Bioterrrorism is terrorism that involves the release of biological agents such as bacteria. parasites. viruses, among others as weapons against a populace. Arguably the most notorious of these agents is the Variola major variant of the virus smallpox, an an airborne disease which while eradicated as a naturally occurring virus, still remains in stockpiles in both Russia and the United States. Furthermore, undocumented samples of smallpox could possibly be acquired and deployed by terrorists. In order to reduce the damage this would cause, it would be useful to know the most likely locations for a smallpox attack. Method Download Census Block Data From Tiger Create Population Density as POPS UNDER 42 / AREA Take Logarithm of This to Get Weight Download Public Schools, Private Schools, and Starbucks from Lab 10 Digitize Mall Data from Google Maps Create 100m Buffer for all these places Create weight for each of these buildings Create Union of these Places Sum combined weights to get total weight Repeat Process for Transit Union All of these Together to get total opportunity weight Create raster from contour data (DEM) Create solar radiation from this Turn into polygon, take log of solar radiation as negative wt and use as cons Result According to the analysis, the best places for a bioterrorist group to strike is on the northeast side of San Fransisco. The key factor is because the population density here is the highest and this was assigned the highest weight. Furthermore this has the most millennial and transportation gathering grounds meaning this is the optimal place to strike for a bioterrorist group. The limitations I had is that I did not have the computational resources to model the rest of the day and could not get high resolution weather data to get a better result. Features Used: Raster Suitability Analysis (Solar Radiation) Vector Suitability Analysis (Everything Else) Problem Breakdown Opportunity 1 – Census Blocks by Population Density Opportunity 2 – Places where People Under 42 Hang Out (Smallpox Vaccination Stopped 1972) Opportunity 3 – Transit Stations with High Density (BART, Amtrak, Caltrain) Constraint – Solar Radiation (Solar Radiation is Nature’s natural disinfectant) Sources data.sfgov - Elevation Contours Googlemaps + digitizing – Malls Lab 10 Data – Everything Else TIGER Database – Census Block Caltrans GIS Data – BART, Amtrak, Caltrain A Map of Bioterrorist Opportunities A Map of Bioterrorism Constraints A Map of Bioterrorism Suitability