Human Dynamics in Natural Hazards – Mining Business Visitation Data during 2021 Winter Storm Uri in Texas

Keywords: winter storm, data mining, visitation, human dynamic, social equity
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Human behaviors and mobility can reflect the extent of population movements, and economic activities, and reveal the response and recovery of human society. However, when faced with natural hazards, human dynamics have been an enigma due to their complexity, variability, and unpredictability. With the emergence of fine-scale mobile tracking data, it becomes possible to quantitatively measure human mobility dynamics under disastrous conditions. This study aims to detect changes in human dynamics during 2021 Winter Storm Uri in Texas using business visitation data from SafeGraph. Outage tracking data, snowfall depth data, and local socioeconomic conditions were collected to analyze the external and internal impact on visitation fluctuation spatially and temporally. The relationship between visitation fluctuation and household damage was tested. This study found that different types of businesses follow different weekly visitation patterns and most businesses showed decreased visitation during the winter storm, except hotels, whereas the decreased visitation pattern varies among the space. External impacts from disasters on visitation were confirmed while communities with certain internal socioeconomic conditions tend to have changes in visitation towards different directions based on business types. This study provides a framework for fusing different types of novel geospatial data to analyze human dynamics during disasters. Knowledge gained from this study can not only deepen our understanding of human mobility in disastrous conditions but also benefit the decision-making of governments and community leaders in the allocation of emergency supplies and the future deployment of first responders.