Fat Tailed Distributions for Deaths in Conflicts and Disasters

Chatterjee, Arnab ; Chakrabarti, Bikas K (2017) Fat Tailed Distributions for Deaths in Conflicts and Disasters Reports in Advances of Physical Sciences, 01 (01). p. 1740007. ISSN 2424-9424

[img] PDF
206kB

Official URL: http://doi.org/10.1142/S2424942417400072

Related URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/S2424942417400072

Abstract

We study the statistics of human deaths from wars and similar man-made conflicts as well as natural disasters. The probability distribution of number of people killed in natural disasters as well as man-made situations show power law decay for the largest sizes, with similar exponent values. Comparisons with natural disasters, when event sizes are measured in terms of physical quantities (e.g., energy released in earthquake, volume of rainfall, land area affected in forest fires, etc.) also show striking resemblances. The universal patterns in their statistics suggest that some subtle similarities in their mechanisms and dynamics might be responsible.

Item Type:Article
Source:Copyright of this article belongs to World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd
Keywords:Fat tailed distributions;conflicts;natural disasters;distribution of death;death in natural disasters;war deaths
ID Code:128798
Deposited On:03 Nov 2022 10:09
Last Modified:03 Nov 2022 10:09

Repository Staff Only: item control page