An Integrated Risk-Map Against Terrorism

This study is conducted in the framework of Smart Ciber Project and it aims at developing a risk assessment model on the base of a system of integrated maps to evaluate and support decisions on terrorism threat. This final goal has been achieved through the implementation of a methodological model based on the integration of quantitative and qualitative data, gathered from several sources of different nature. The choice of integrating a wide spectrum of data, is due to the research focuses, characterized for an apparently inhomogeneous context of analysis focused on Big City (BC), Critical Infrastructures (CIs) and Big Events (BE). A deeper valuation from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, in realty, leads to the conclusion that the three contexts are interlinked and influence each other. In fact, the Big City focus can be considered the wider point of view of the present study; while the two further focuses, i.e. Critical Infrastructures and Big Events, can be considered topic aspects of the complex urban context, having a central role in the risk assessment of terrorism, intended to be the “file rouge” that interlinks the three research focuses. As far as the methodological aspect is concerned, the three above-mentioned contexts of analysis, have been intended as three different data sources, able to implement the software with a wide spectrum of data of different nature. In fact, the software is composed of several databases, which gather quantitative data completed with qualitative data that have been collected through interviews to experts and privileged stakeholders. Each datum of both natures, i.e. quali/quantitative, integrates the map and strengths the risk assessment model, for a more detailed and deeper comprehension of the social composition of the urban context first where radicalization processes leading to terrorism could take place, and then this methodological approach helps identifying the vulnerabilities, that can be developed within any big city. In our exercise we applied the model to the city of Milan, in Italy, where Expo 2015 will take place. Therefore, it is important to analyze in detail the several sources of quantitative and qualitative data, as well as the interaction between these two kind of data that apparently are inhomogeneous, but at the end they represent the added value of the model for a more effective strategy of risk assessment. The methodological analysis is based on a three-steps valuation of the qualitative and quantitative data: i.e. from the “theoretical model”, to the development of a “risk assessment model” and completing the map with empirical data, through the “Evil Done” model, collected from the s.c. “soft and hard” targets of terrorism, which represents the progression in the development of the final software: namely, the “risk assessment model on the base of a system of integrated maps”.