Purpose. To increase management efficiency of the population protection system in man-made disasters, estimation of readiness rate for carrying out activities to protect the population with subsequent estimation of population protection territorial indices in emergencies is proposed. With this purpose, it is necessary to develop a model for assessing major United state system of prevention and elimination of emergency situations activities relative significance: sheltering the population in civil defense shelters, evacuating population from emergency zones, using respiratory protecting equipment, carrying out medical protection activities and providing emergency-rescue operations and other urgent works in emergency zones. Methods. With in the systematic approach framework, mathematical modeling, expert evaluation method, hierarchy analysis method and its modifications, as well as elements of decision-making theory have been used in the research. The article presents an approach based on paired comparisons method to assess relative significance of major United state system of prevention and elimination of emergency situations activities in conditions of chemical, radiation, hydrodynamic hazards, and fire and explosion hazard, where the criteria mutual superiority in terms of population protection effectiveness in implementing each of the considered man-made hazards is determined. To conduct paired comparisons, a criteria relative superiority scale is used. Mathematical results processing of paired comparisons is carried out in accordance with the rules of hierarchy analysis method and includes the following operations: compiling an indicators matrix for comparing major United state system of prevention and elimination of emergency situations activities to protect the population from man-made hazards, normalizing the elements of the matrix columns, constructing a normalized values matrix, and forming a local priorities vector. The paired comparisons procedure involves a group assessment of local priorities vector as geometric mean of criteria paired comparisons matrix elements corresponding to each member of the expert group judgments. Findings. A matrix model for assessing relative significance of major United state system of prevention and elimination of emergency situations activities is built, based on hierarchy analysis method and expert evaluation method. The stages of constructing a mathematical model are considered, the procedures of paired comparisons and criteria significance matrix formation are described in detail, a relative significance matrix of major United state system of prevention and elimination of emergency situations activities for protecting the population from typical man-made hazards is calculated on the example of a specific territory. A method for conducting group assessment of local priorities vector is proposed, a procedure for verifying the constructed matrix model for assessing relative significance of United state system of prevention and elimination of emergency situations activities is described. Research application field. The resulting matrix model for assessing major United state system of prevention and elimination of emergency situations activities relative significance can be used to calculate readiness rate for carrying out activities for population protection in man-made disasters and subsequent activities for population protection efficiency evaluation. Conclusions. The developed model valid application will make it possible to ensure grounded decisions adoption on the need to take activities to protect the population in man-made disasters, to increase the United state system of prevention and elimination of emergency situations activities effectiveness assessments reliability, and to ensure assessments adequacy for the Civil Defense in Emergencies activities effectiveness.
