Combined and delayed impacts of epidemics and extreme weather on urban mobility recovery

Abstract

The ever-increasing pandemic and natural disasters might spatial-temporal overlap to trigger compound disasters that disrupt urban life, including human movements. In this study, we proposed a framework for data-driven analyses on mobility resilience to uncover the compound effects of COVID-19 and extreme weather events on mobility recovery across cities with varied socioeconomic contexts. The concept of suppression risk (SR) is introduced to quantify the relative risk of mobility being reduced below the pre-pandemic baseline when certain variables deviate from their normal values. By analysing daily mobility data within and between 313 Chinese cities, we consistently observed that the highest SR under outbreaks occurred at high temperatures and abnormal precipitation levels, regardless of the type of travel, incidences, and time. Specifically, extremely high temperatures (at 35 °C) increased SR during outbreaks by 12.5%-120% but shortened the time for mobility recovery. Increased rainfall (at 20 mm/day) added SRs by 12.5%-300%, with delayed effects reflected in cross-city movements. These compound impacts, with varying lagged responses, were aggravated in cities with high population density and low GDP levels. Our findings provide quantitative evidence to inform the design of preparedness and response strategies for enhancing urban resilience in the face of future pandemics and compound disasters.