Examining hazard-induced mobility patterns and decision-making in a space-time context using large-scale mobile phone data

Abstract

Understanding human movements and how they relate to varied environmental risks is crucial as mobility is one of the most effective adaptation strategies to the hazards. To this end, this study examines the decision-making process of hazard-induced mobility patterns in a space−time context by investigating the space−time choices for avoiding the harmful impacts of air pollution and extreme cold events that are actualized into overt movement behaviors. Results suggest that people change their mobility patterns to avoid the harmful impacts of air pollution and cold events, and are less likely to move from less urbanized areas to highly urbanized areas to avoid the hazards, especially for air pollution. Furthermore, intercity and intracity movements can both be changed to avoid the harmful impacts of two hazards. This study finds that averting travel decisions are most sensitive to the origin's air quality on the day of travel and destination's extreme cold temperatures around one day ago and one day forecast. Our results offer fresh evidence on the decision-making mechanisms of mobility responses to air pollution and cold events.