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Main Authors: Butler, Melissa, Khan, Alisha, Afrifa, Francis Osei Tutu, Hu, Yingjie, Taylor, Dane
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.03642
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author Butler, Melissa
Khan, Alisha
Afrifa, Francis Osei Tutu
Hu, Yingjie
Taylor, Dane
author_facet Butler, Melissa
Khan, Alisha
Afrifa, Francis Osei Tutu
Hu, Yingjie
Taylor, Dane
contents Understanding human mobility during disastrous events is crucial for emergency planning and disaster management. We develop a methodology to construct time-varying, multilayer networks where edges encode observed movements between spatial regions (census tracts) and network layers encode movement categories by industry sectors (e.g., schools, hospitals). Using the 2021 Texas winter storm as a case study, we find that people markedly reduced movements to ambulatory healthcare services, restaurants, and schools, but prioritized movements to grocery stores and gas stations. Additionally, we study the predictability of nodes' in- and out-degrees in the multilayer networks, which encode movements into and out of census tracts. Inward movements prove harder to predict than outward movements, especially during the storm. Our findings on the reduction, prioritization, and predictability of sector-specific movements aim to support mobility-related decisions during future extreme weather events.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_03642
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Multilayer networks characterize human-mobility patterns by industry sector for the 2021 Texas winter storm
Butler, Melissa
Khan, Alisha
Afrifa, Francis Osei Tutu
Hu, Yingjie
Taylor, Dane
Physics and Society
Applications
Understanding human mobility during disastrous events is crucial for emergency planning and disaster management. We develop a methodology to construct time-varying, multilayer networks where edges encode observed movements between spatial regions (census tracts) and network layers encode movement categories by industry sectors (e.g., schools, hospitals). Using the 2021 Texas winter storm as a case study, we find that people markedly reduced movements to ambulatory healthcare services, restaurants, and schools, but prioritized movements to grocery stores and gas stations. Additionally, we study the predictability of nodes' in- and out-degrees in the multilayer networks, which encode movements into and out of census tracts. Inward movements prove harder to predict than outward movements, especially during the storm. Our findings on the reduction, prioritization, and predictability of sector-specific movements aim to support mobility-related decisions during future extreme weather events.
title Multilayer networks characterize human-mobility patterns by industry sector for the 2021 Texas winter storm
topic Physics and Society
Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.03642