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Spatiotemporal patterns of US drought awareness

Author

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  • Sungyoon Kim

    (The University of Alabama)

  • Wanyun Shao

    (The University of Alabama
    Center for Complex Hydrosystems Research)

  • Jonghun Kam

    (The University of Alabama
    Center for Complex Hydrosystems Research)

Abstract

Drought is a creeping climatological phenomenon with persistent precipitation deficits. Unlike rapid onset natural hazards such as floods and wildfires, the intangible and gradual characteristics of drought cause a lack of social response during the onset. The level of awareness of a local drought increases rapidly through mass media reports and online information searching activities when the drought reaches its peak severity. This high level of local drought awareness drives concerns for water shortage and support for water policy. However, spatiotemporal patterns of national-scale drought awareness have never been studied due to constraints imposed by time-consuming and costly survey data collection and surveys’ limited sample sizes. Here, we present the national-scale study to reveal the spatiotemporal patterns of drought awareness over the contiguous United States (CONUS) using Google Trends data and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Results show that the first two PC modes can explain 48% (38% for PC1 and 10% for PC2) of the total variance of state-level drought awareness. We find that the PC1 mode relates to a national pattern of drought awareness across the CONUS. The spatiotemporal patterns further imply that residents in the Northeastern US region are the most aware of the emergence of drought, regardless of the geographic location of the occurrence. The results illustrate how big data, such as search query and social media data, can help develop an effective and efficient plan for drought mitigation in the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Sungyoon Kim & Wanyun Shao & Jonghun Kam, 2019. "Spatiotemporal patterns of US drought awareness," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-9, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:5:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-019-0317-7
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-019-0317-7
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Seungil Yum, 2021. "The effects of Hurricane Dorian on spatial reactions and mobility," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 105(3), pages 2481-2497, February.
    2. Fabrizio Terenzio Gizzi & Jonghun Kam & Donatella Porrini, 2020. "Time windows of opportunities to fight earthquake under-insurance: evidence from Google Trends," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-11, December.
    3. Jiangmei Xiong & Yulin Hswen & John A. Naslund, 2020. "Digital Surveillance for Monitoring Environmental Health Threats: A Case Study Capturing Public Opinion from Twitter about the 2019 Chennai Water Crisis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-15, July.
    4. Huiyun Zhu & Kecheng Liu, 2021. "Capturing the Interplay between Risk Perception and Social Media Posting to Support Risk Response and Decision Making," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(10), pages 1-14, May.
    5. Jonghun Kam & Jihun Park & Wanyun Shao & Junho Song & Jinhee Kim & Fabrizio Terenzio Gizzi & Donatella Porrini & Young-Joo Suh, 2021. "Data-driven modeling reveals the Western dominance of global public interest in earthquakes," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.

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