Understanding how populations use urban space is critical for assessing economic activity, societal resilience, and infrastructure accessibility. But measuring urban space usage at the frequency and granularity required to support these assessments can be challenging, especially when relying only on traditional survey methods. To overcome this challenge, the team proposes using mobility data -- i.e., telemetry data derived from mobile devices – to generate high-frequency indices of urban space usage (e.g., retail centers, construction sites, manufacturing zones, financial centers, residential areas, etc.).
Recent applications of mobility data, such as Google's COVID-19 Community Mobility reports and projects implemented through the World Bank's Development Data Partnership, have demonstrated the potential of using mobility data to inform pandemic response measures, understand public transit usage trends, identify informal trade routes, and more, demonstrating their unique value in generating timely and granular statistics. {cite}Achyunda2020MeasuringTE {cite}Makris2022MechanicalAF {cite}Saha2020LockdownFC.
By leveraging mobility data, this project seeks to uncover the dynamics of human mobility and urban space usage in response to climate shocks. The methodology and findings will contribute to the understanding of how urban spaces are utilized during extreme climate events, enable regional comparisons, identify correlations between urban space usage and climate shocks, and facilitate predictive analysis. Ultimately, this research will support evidence-based policy and planning decisions that will improve urban climate resilience.
To ensure the project research and analysis inform World Bank operations, the DECSC team is partnering with the European and Central Asia Sustainable Development (SCADR) team to implement the project. The ECA region faces increasing vulnerability to climate change, as warmer temperatures and more volatile weather patterns alter frequency of extreme droughts, floods, heat waves, and forest fires. The poorest countries and most vulnerable households are likely to face the worst impacts of climate change, through lost livelihoods and environmental degradation {cite}worldbankeca. In response to these challenges, the ECA SD team is leading a series of ASA and lending activities to improve the climate resilience of ECA countries, especially urban areas. The research and analytical work undertaken as part of this grant will directly support these activities.
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