| Many U.S. city regions have experienced some form of urban "sprawl," or the uneven, outward spreading of urban development from city centers. For city regions lying in areas prone to severe weather, the sprawl phenomenon exposes greater numbers of developed areas to thunderstorm hazards of different intensities. One such region, the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) of Atlanta, GA, has experienced extensive sprawl development since 1960 and lies in an area prone to thunderstorms year-round. This study will use three approaches to examine how the Atlanta area's massive development has affected its overall risk to thunderstorm hazards, which include tornadoes, wind, and hail. First, spatial densities and temporal intervals of hazard events are examined for each MSA county to determine if some locations may be more prone to hazard exposure than others. Second, spatial densities are computed for population, housing, and median income values for all counties to locate areas of greatest potential loss. Last, archived census data are employed to assess overall impacts from hypothetical tornado, wind, and hail events occurring at different time periods throughout several locations in the Atlanta MSA. Given the Atlanta area's history of extensive development and hazardous weather exposure, the region qualifies as a sufficient study area for this project, whose principal goal is to determine how urbanization growth patterns affect a region's vulnerability to severe weather events. |
