Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Agent-Based Simulation Model for Business Reopenings in New Orleans Post Hurricane Katrina

许多观察人士认为，经常受到自然和人为干扰的城市和地区将达到“临界点”，从而抑制其恢复能力，使其无法恢复。了解人类和自然系统之间的复杂关系以及临界点的阈值对于确保城市和地区的可持续发展至关重要，特别是当它们面临长期气候变化和短期大规模干扰的威胁时。直到最近，灾后恢复领域的大多数研究都集中在家庭或整个社区。尽管企业是城市的基本组成部分，为城市的可持续发展提供服务、就业和税收，但对企业应对灾害的实证研究相对较少。这个博士论文研究项目将开发一个基于代理的仿真模型来表示和理解新奥尔良在卡特里娜飓风后的动态环境下的企业重新开业过程。这项研究有两个目的。首先，它将确定与重新开放相关的主要预测因素，并使用在过去五年中进行的研究中收集的经验数据集，估计它们随着时间的推移的相对重要性。然后将根据从第一个目标得到的参数开发和验证一个计算机模拟模型，以表示重新开业的过程。该项目将有助于地理学、相关空间科学和其他研究灾害经济恢复和动态建模的领域。模拟的使用将增强对复杂恢复过程的理解，以及在一个时间点在一个地点开业将如何影响在以后的时间段在其他地点重新开业的可能性。由真实数据支持的经过验证的模拟模型将使研究人员和决策者能够设计和测试恢复策略，从而更好地分配资源。虽然模拟模型将基于卡特里娜飓风后的新奥尔良数据，但它将适用于受类似性质灾害影响的其他地区。在这项研究中开发的模拟和可视化计算机程序将提供给开源社区。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

Many observers believe that cities and places subject to frequent natural and human disturbance will reach "tipping points" that inhibit their resilience to the level that recovery may not be possible. Understanding the complex relationships among human and natural systems and the thresholds of tipping points are critical to ensuring sustainable development of cities and regions, especially when they are faced with the threats of both long-term climate change and short-term, large-scale disturbance. Until recently, most of the research in the field of post disaster recovery focused on households or whole communities. The empirical study of business responses to disasters is relatively scarce, despite the fact that businesses are a fundamental part of the cities, providing services, jobs, and taxes that are essential for urban sustainability. This doctoral dissertation research project will develop an agent-based simulation model to represent and understand the businesses reopening process in a dynamic environment in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The research has two objectives. First, it will identify the main predictors associated with reopening and estimate their relative importance over time, using an empirical data set collected during studies conducted over the previous five years. A computer simulation model based on the parameters derived from the first objective then will be developed and validated to represent the business-reopening process.This project will contribute to geography, related spatial sciences, and other fields that examine disaster economy recovery and dynamic modeling. The use of simulation will enhance understanding of the complex recovery process and how a business opening in one location at one point in time will affect business reopening probabilities in other locations in later time periods. The validated simulation model supported by real data will allow researchers and policy makers to design and test recovery policies so that resources can be better allocated. Although the simulation model will be based on post-Katrina New Orleans data, it will be adaptable for other locations affected by disasters of a similar nature. The simulation and visualization computer program developed in this research will be made available to the open source community. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.