AGORA means a "place of congregation," in this case, an international forum for open-source software for multihazard risk modeling. To manage risk from natural and technological disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, industrial accidents, etc.) and to understand the potential impacts of new disaster science or policy, requires access to analytical and computer risk models. The models are constantly in flux as science, engineering, and disaster social science develop, but most researchers and practitioners lack risk-integration tools and methods needed for an overall understanding of risk, and must either re-develop existing integrative software or abandon potentially fruitful study. HAZUS and commercial risk software are designed to apply methods that have been tested or are in some way authoritative, but tend to be inflexible to new developments (closed source in terms of software) and opaque (black box in terms of methodology).
The Alliance for Global Open Risk Assessment (AGORA) is conceived as a nonprofit, international virtual organization created to promote and coordinate development of open-source risk software and methodologies to perform end-to-end risk modeling. (End-to-end refers to modeling the occurrence of hazardous events, site effects, physical damage to the built environment, and economic and human impacts.)
AGORA can be accessed at www.risk-agora.org
最終更新日 2013年2月22日（金曜）13:51