Development of an integrated socio-hydrological modeling framework for assessing the impacts of shelter location arrangement and human behaviors on flood evacuation processes

Abstract

Abstract. In many flood-prone areas, it is essential for emergency responders to use advanced computer models to assess flood risk and develop informed flood evacuation plans. However, previous studies have limited understanding of how evacuation performances are affected by the arrangement of evacuation shelters regarding their number and geographical distribution and human behaviors regarding the heterogeneity of household evacuation preparation times and route searching strategies. In this study, we develop an integrated socio-hydrological modeling framework that couples (1) a hydrodynamic model for flood simulation, (2) an agent-based model for evacuation management policies and human behaviors, and (3) a transportation model for simulating household evacuation processes in a road network. We apply the model to the Xiong’an New Area and examine household evacuation outcomes under various shelter location plans and human behavior scenarios. The results show that household evacuation processes are significantly affected by the number and geographical distribution of evacuation shelters. Surprisingly, we find that establishing more shelters may not improve evacuation results if the shelters are not strategically located. We also find that low heterogeneity in evacuation preparation times can result in heavy traffic congestion and long evacuation clearance times. If each household selects their own shortest route without considering the effects of other evacuees’ route choices, traffic congestions will likely to occur, thereby reducing system-level evacuation performance. These results demonstrate the unique functionality of our model to support flood risk assessment and to advance our understanding of how the multiple management and behavioral factors jointly affect evacuation performances.