An Improved Two-Step Floating Catchment Area Method for Evaluating Spatial Accessibility to Urban Emergency Shelters

Xiaomeng Zhu, Zhijun Tong, Xingpeng Liu, Xiangqian Li, Pengda Lin and Tong Wang
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Xiaomeng Zhu: School of Environment, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130117, China
Zhijun Tong: School of Environment, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130117, China
Xingpeng Liu: School of Environment, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130117, China
Xiangqian Li: School of Environment, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130117, China
Pengda Lin: School of Environment, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130117, China
Tong Wang: Army Armor Academy, NCO Institute, Changchun 130117, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: As an important component of urban disaster prevention and mitigation systems, the balance and equity of emergency shelter distribution can be measured based on spatial accessibility utilizing the two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method. However, there are some issues in previous studies on emergency shelter accessibility evaluated by the 2SFCA method: (1) the high discretization of population distribution data and the travel cost being measured base on Euclidean distance; (2) ignoring the difference between shelter and population catchment sizes. To address these issues, we propose an improved 2SFCA method that computes the shelter and population catchments respectively to evaluate the emergency shelter accessibility in Changchun, China. We compare the proposed improved 2SFCA method to the original 2SFCA method. The results indicate that the catchment size and shelter accessibility calculated by the proposed method are more realistic and objective. The improved 2SFCA method is applicable method for evaluating the shelter accessibility and can provide advice for the planning and management of emergency shelters in the future.

Keywords: improved two-step floating catchment area method; emergency shelter; spatial accessibility; Changchun (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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