The Miniato Scale
Eleven ordinal levels. The level is the maximum across six domains of realised harm; an unaffected domain never dilutes a serious harm in another. Loss of control, autonomy and evidential confidence are displayed next to the number and never added into it. Rules version pilot-1.0.
Domains
- H
- Human life and health
- R
- Rights, freedoms and privacy
- F
- Assets, economic loss and livelihoods
- O
- Operations and essential services
- B
- Biosphere and biodiversity
- S
- Societal, institutional and systemic effects
Levels
From level 4 upward, at least one person has died or harm of declared equivalent gravity has occurred. Deaths and losses share one anchor, θ = 10,000,000 € per statistical death; a serious permanent injury counts 0.1 harm units.
| Level | Label | Anchor |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | No harm | Assessed absence of adverse consequences and of any effective breach of controls within the declared scope. May carry a hazard tag. Not to be confused with “not yet assessed”. |
| 1 | Minor | Small, bounded, easily reversible consequences. Economic loss below 100 000 €. Any effective breach of controls is at least level 1. |
| 2 | Limited | Verifiable but bounded harm: losses of 100 000 to 1 M€, delimited data alterations or service interruptions recoverable without substantial reconstruction. |
| 3 | Significant | Relevant harm to persons, organisations or communities: losses of 1 to 10 M€, a serious permanent injury, deprivation of liberty, sustained disruption of processes, privacy or rights. |
| 4 | Serious | At least one attributable death, or harm of declared equivalent gravity: losses of 10 to 100 M€, ten or more serious permanent injuries, grave rights violations affecting many people, profound degradation of activities or ecosystems. |
| 5 | Severe | Ten or more deaths; losses of 100 M to 1 bn €; very serious loss of essential functions, rights or livelihoods at a bounded scale. |
| 6 | Disaster | A hundred or more deaths; losses of 1 to 10 bn €; devastation of communities; extensive interruption of essential services or environmental damage. |
| 7 | Catastrophe | A thousand or more deaths; losses of 10 bn to 1 tn €; breakdown of essential systems affecting societies broadly and requiring structural recovery. |
| 8 | Extreme catastrophe | A hundred thousand or more deaths; losses of 1 tn € or more; global civilisational or ecological collapse short of levels 9–10. |
| 9 | Extinction-class (terminal) | Human extinction, or irreversible global collapse of complex ecosystems, without meeting level 10. |
| 10 | Total biological annihilation (terminal) | Extinction of humanity and disappearance of all terrestrial biological life. A logical anchor; by construction unobservable by any human evaluator. |
Uncertainty
Where evidence runs out the result is a set of admissible levels, published as an interval (for example 3–4), a lower bound (≥ 2) or an explicit set. Unknown is never rendered as 0, and “no deaths confirmed” is not “zero deaths”.