Anatomizing Societal Recovery at the Microscale: Heterogeneity in Household Lifestyle Activities Rebounding after Disasters

This study presents a granular analysis of societal recovery from disasters at the individual level, focusing on the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Ida. Societal recovery is defined as the restoration of the societal functioning of the affected community to its normal/steady-state level. It evaluates the recovery of impacted residents based on fluctuations in their lifestyle patterns in visits to points of interest. The analysis focuses on: (1) the extent of heterogeneity in lifestyle recovery of residents in the same spatial area; and (2) the extent to which variations in lifestyle recovery and its heterogeneity among users can be explained based on hazard impact extent and social vulnerability. As lifestyle recovery progresses, heterogeneity diminishes, indicating that lower lifestyle recovery rates correlate with higher heterogeneity within a spatial area. This relationship between lifestyle recovery and heterogeneity can lead to the misestimation of recovery timelines, potentially resulting in the inefficient allocation of resources and disproportionate attention to already recovering communities. Key contributions of the study are fourfold: First, it characterizes societal recovery at the finest scale by examining fluctuations in individual lifestyles, revealing heterogeneity even among neighbors. Second, it proposes using individual lifestyle as an indicator of societal functioning to measure, more human centrically, disaster impacts and recovery speeds. Third, it introduces a method for quantifying lifestyle recovery that enables near-real-time monitoring, departing from traditional survey-based methods. Fourth, it provides empirical insights into the relationship between disaster impacts and societal recovery, showing that the severity of disaster impacts and resident income levels and percentage of minority populations influence recovery durations.

本研究从个体层面对社会从灾害中的恢复进行了细致分析，重点关注哈维飓风和艾达飓风的后续影响。社会恢复被定义为受影响社区的社会功能恢复到其正常/稳定状态水平。它根据居民在兴趣点访问方面生活方式模式的波动来评估受影响居民的恢复情况。分析重点关注：（1）同一空间区域内居民生活方式恢复的异质性程度；（2）根据灾害影响程度和社会脆弱性能够在多大程度上解释用户生活方式恢复及其异质性的差异。随着生活方式恢复的推进，异质性降低，这表明较低的生活方式恢复率与一个空间区域内较高的异质性相关。生活方式恢复和异质性之间的这种关系可能导致对恢复时间线的错误估计，从而可能导致资源分配低效以及对已经在恢复的社区过度关注。该研究的主要贡献有四个方面：首先，它通过研究个体生活方式的波动，以最精细的尺度描述了社会恢复情况，揭示了即使在邻居之间也存在的异质性。其次，它提出将个体生活方式作为社会功能的一个指标，以便更以人为本地衡量灾害影响和恢复速度。第三，它引入了一种量化生活方式恢复的方法，能够进行近实时监测，有别于传统的基于调查的方法。第四，它提供了关于灾害影响和社会恢复之间关系的实证见解，表明灾害影响的严重程度以及居民收入水平和少数族裔人口比例会影响恢复时间。