Festivals and heavy floods have one thing in common: they have a similar effect on people’s mobility. This knowledge can help to better understand the effects of natural hazards such as flooding, according to a study.
The similarities arise, among other things, because in both cases you have to make detours due to closures and traffic jams: both due to the affected floods such as therefore blocked roads and rail lines, as well as due to necessary detours at larger festivals.
This is explained by Margreth Keiler, who works at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Öaw) and to the Institute of Geography at the University of Innsbruck.
Location data investigated
In particular, traffic on the road and rails were investigated in 2017 for the study of the Austrian swiss research team in 2017 in 2017 in 2017. For this purpose, location data from mobile phones were investigated for a period of six weeks.
On the one hand, one could deduce how many people are moving around so on when and how in the region of 350 square kilometers. On the other hand, the researchers saw how the behavior changed due to the floods.
The connection was quickly clear
However, the research showed other comparable distortions in the weeks before and after the flood. “That surprised us because we knew that there was only a flood,” Keiler explains. However, it soon became clear that there was a connection between these mobility changes and large events such as concerts, markets and summer festivals.
Data can help with disaster management
Since festivals, concerts and the like are much more available than floods and therefore more data, the analysis can, for example, help to build models for disaster management, says research director Simone Loreti of the University of Bern. In any case, the combination of machine learning, complexity research and network science offers great potential.
Source: Krone
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