The effect of intra-urban mobility flows on the spatial heterogeneity of social media activity: investigating the response to rainfall events

Camargo de Andrade, S., Porto de Albuquerque, J. , Restrepo-Estrada, C., Westerholt, R., Augusto Morales Rodriguez, C., Mario Mendiondo, E. and Cláudio Botazzo Delbem, A. (2022) The effect of intra-urban mobility flows on the spatial heterogeneity of social media activity: investigating the response to rainfall events. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 36(6), pp. 1140-1165. (doi: 10.1080/13658816.2021.1957898)

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Abstract

Although it is acknowledged that urban inequalities can lead to biases in the production of social media data, there is a lack of studies which make an assessment of the effects of intra-urban movements in real-world urban analytics applications, based on social media. This study investigates the spatial heterogeneity of social media with regard to the regular intra-urban movements of residents by means of a case study of rainfall-related Twitter activity in São Paulo, Brazil. We apply a spatial autoregressive model that uses population and income as covariates and intra-urban mobility flows as spatial weights to explain the spatial distribution of the social response to rainfall events in Twitter vis-à-vis rainfall radar data. Results show high spatial heterogeneity in the response of social media to rainfall events, which is linked to intra-urban inequalities. Our model performance (R2=0.80) provides evidence that urban mobility flows and socio-economic indicators are significant factors to explain the spatial heterogeneity of thematic spatiotemporal patterns extracted from social media. Therefore, urban analytics research and practice should consider not only the influence of socio-economic profile of neighborhoods but also the spatial interaction introduced by intra-urban mobility flows to account for spatial heterogeneity when using social media data.

Item Type:Articles
Additional Information:This work has been funded by the Economics and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC) under Grant [ES/S006982/1], Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) through the Global Challenges Research Fund, Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) under Grants [2019/01717-2, 2017/15413-0], The Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) under Grants [Pró-Alertas 88887.091742/2014-01, 88887.091743/2014-01], FAPESP-Warwick Joint Fund [2018/08413-6], and The Alan Turing Institute, UK.
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Porto de Albuquerque, Professor Joao
Authors: Camargo de Andrade, S., Porto de Albuquerque, J., Restrepo-Estrada, C., Westerholt, R., Augusto Morales Rodriguez, C., Mario Mendiondo, E., and Cláudio Botazzo Delbem, A.
College/School:College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Urban Studies
Journal Name:International Journal of Geographical Information Science
Publisher:Taylor & Francis
ISSN:1365-8816
ISSN (Online):1365-8824
Published Online:03 August 2021
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2021 The Author(s).
First Published:First published in International Journal of Geographical Information Science 36(6): 1140-1165
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence

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