Area Study

We approach the area study with a concentric ring strategy. The bullseye is our target, the site or local area that we control, which we assess with a Site Survey. If you have more than one site, separated from one another but in the same area, they will each require a separate Site Survey.

Draw the next ring to encompass a larger surrounding area that you can influence, within which you can operate, or within which you can anticipate cooperation and mutual support in time of crisis. The radius of this circle will depend on your location and circumstances. This is your Area of Operations (AO).

The outer ring will enclose a much larger area, the Area of Interest (AI), over which you have little or no influence. It should include populations, environmental factors, and infrastructure that can affect your target. The size of the AI can also considerably according to your location and circumstances; some factors that will help you in defining its size and shape are:

• Population size, density, distribution, and characteristics that can predict stability or instability in crisis situations
• Transportation routes
• Critical nodes for the production, distribution, and control of vital materials and resources, such as electricity, fuel, food, water, medical care, and emergency response.

The boundary between the AO and AI may be indefinite, or difficult to define. It may expand or contract during your collection and analysis efforts, by the nature of the threat scenarios that concern you, and by developments over time. It is essentially a mental overlay, a conceptual distinction. You need not differentiate between the AO and the AI while 'populating' the study.

Purpose, Organization, and Method

An area study comprises a great mass of information that must be compiled in advance of need, so that it is available for planning and in a crisis. It should be updated on a regular basis, or when conditions and information change. As with other components of your Security Analysis, it is best undertaken as a team project. Production of an area study is done in three phases, which can easily overlap:

Planning

• Designate a single person as lead for the project. All efforts will be directed or coordinated by this Project Lead, in order to avoid duplication of effort.
• The Project Lead will design a collection plan, make specific assignments in accordance with this plan, and review materials generate by team members to ensure completeness of information or to direct follow-up as necessary.
• The depth and quality of the study will be enhanced by leveraging the skills and knowledge of participants. Participants should contribute within their specific areas of expertise or knowledge, and review each other's work in the evaluation phase.
• Priorities may be established, and capabilities balanced against these priorities to arrive at an allocation of effort.

Collection

• Collection is the systematic exploitation of sources of information, to include personal knowledge, human contacts, and research in published sources.
• The collector of information is responsible for assessing his source's reliability and the accuracy of his information in accordance with the rating system shown in Table 1, Information evaluation rating system, assigning a letter rank for source reliability and a number rank for information accuracy.
• Citations and/or source material (such as interview notes, photographs, maps and collected primary sources should accompany recorded information.

Processing

• Recording is reducing information to writing or another graphical form of presentation.
• Evaluation is reviewing information to determine its pertinence, accuracy, and the reliability of the source. Other study participants provide a control for bias, and can offer their particular areas of knowledge, sources, and perspectives.

Interpretation is the application of critical judgment involving analysis, integration, and deduction. Analysis is sifting and sorting evaluated information to isolate significant elements; integration is combining these elements with other known information; and deduction is deriving meaning from the resulting body of information.

Information sources can include personal interviews and conversations, maps, photographs, books and periodicals, government and non-governmental reports and publications, as well as a wide variety of online sources (which must be used with a special degree of skepticism and discretion).

Common Elements:

For both your AO and AI, you should address at least the following categories of information:

• Route Maps: Major and minor routes originating, terminating, or passing through the area; this may encompass road, rail, air, marine and riverine routes, and the locations outside your AO/AI to which they link.
• Physical Terrain. Topographic maps, with annotated for overland trafficability based on seasonal variations, traffic levels, and land ownership or usage.
• Weather. Both routine and low-frequency weather impacts must be considered. Internal security measures and the effectiveness and rapidity of outside assistance will be impacted by road conditions, visibility, ground conditions, electrical storms, snow cover, and other naturally occurring conditions.
• Human Terrain: Who lives, works in, or transits your AO and AI on a regular basis; and how would this be impacted by man-made or natural crises? For instance, would floods, seismic events, hurricanes, or civil disorder generate a flow of displaced persons or refugees into or across your area - and how would your community respond? Consider demographics, socioeconomics, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
• Infrastructure. This includes:
  • Utilities and energy supply (both generation and distribution)
  • Schools (all levels, public and private)
  • Health care facilities (capacity and level of care under both normal and off-normal conditions)
  • Fuel (stocks, sources, and modes of distribution)
  • Food and other necessary expendables (stocks, sources, and modes of distribution)
  • Other resources and capabilities that may be exceptional in terms of availability, scarcity, or demand
• Law enforcement, military, and other first responder and consequence-mitigation capabilities. Inventory force levels, capabilities, and response times throughout your AO and AI. For instance, the availability (and timelines) of statewide LE support, National Guard forces, and active duty military forces were critical during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. National Guard Civil Support Teams (CST) are critical national assets in the event of a hostile or accidental release of toxic or radioactive materials - where is the nearest CST, and what is their area of responsibility? What is the depth and redundancy of these capabilities in a sustained, severe, or wide-area crisis? Federally funded, County-level Homeland Security Directors are usually responsible for maintaining a wide array of interagency emergency response plans, which are available for public review.

CONCERNS SPECIFIC TO YOUR AO:

• Ingress/Egress. On the boundary between AO and your Site(s), this is a more fine-grained analysis of routes and trafficability. It will be very important in analysis of more severe or sustained threats, especially those with a "kinetic" component. It is a tactical analysis that can be shaped by the military acronym OCOKA (Observation, Cover & Concealment, Obstacles, Key Terrain, Avenues of Approach).
• Shared Interests. Public and private entities, including local government, businesses, non-governmental organizations, houses of worship, communities) within your AO will share your concerns about stability and security. Assess them each in detail, and especially on the basis of their preparedness for various contingencies, and their receptiveness to joint planning and preparations.

SOURCES AND METHODS: There are many online sources and utilities you can use in the preparation of your Area Study. The following is a partial list. We recommend that you store your information locally, and not on the cloud.

• https://www.google.com/earth/ - Google Earth is the most comprehensive and accurate online mapping utility.
• https://mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4-free-online-topo-maps.html - Gmap4 provides topographic map overlays for Google Earth, and multi-sourced informational overlays from private and governmental sources.
• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/snip-sketch/9mz95kl8mr0l?activetab=pivot%3Aoverviewtab - Snip & Sketch enables you to annotate screenshots, photos and other images with your pen, touch, or mouse and save, paste or share with other apps.
• http://www.opensecrets.org/ - a non-profit, nonpartisan research group that tracks the effects of money and lobbying on elections and public policy.
• http://usa.com - a guide to cities, towns, neighborhoods, states, counties, metro areas, zip codes, area codes, and schools in the USA.
• https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/searchresults.xhtml?refresh=t - American Factfinder, a government source for population, housing, economic and geographic information.

In Summary

An Area Study can be as broad or as deep as you make it. Its outer boundary is wherever you place it – it could be the boundary of a gated community, the property line of a farm or ranch, or a hundred-mile (or greater) radius defined by geography, population, and economics. It is yours, so shape it as you wish. If subsequent steps in your Security Analysis raise enough questions about people, organizations, and conditions beyond your initially drawn boundary, then expand it. If you feel your first Area Study should be more tightly drawn, with fewer distractions from "over the hills and far away," then reduce its size.

Accept that, like the rest of your Security Analysis, the Area Study can't be a "one and done" effort. It has to be a living document, because the conditions it describes will change over time and you must keep up. Revisit and review your work periodically, or whenever in the course of everyday life you become aware of significant changes.

A well-executed, comprehensive Area Study – complemented by the more fine-grained detail of a Site Survey (or possibly several of them) – will actually provide much of the information you will want in your Threat Assessment, External Assets Evaluation, and Vulnerability Assessment. In the interest of efficiency, then, it's a very good place to start.