Cross-comparative analysis of evacuation behavior after earthquakes using mobile phone data.

ABSTRACT: Despite the importance of predicting evacuation mobility dynamics after large scale disasters for effective first response and disaster relief, our general understanding of evacuation behavior remains limited because of the lack of empirical evidence on the evacuation movement of individuals across multiple disaster instances. Here we investigate the GPS trajectories of a total of more than 1 million anonymized mobile phone users whose positions were tracked for a period of 2 months before and after four of the major earthquakes that occurred in Japan. Through a cross comparative analysis between the four disaster instances, we find that in contrast to the assumed complexity of evacuation decision making mechanisms in crisis situations, an individual's evacuation probability is strongly de

SUBMITTER: Yabe T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6382263 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature