Monitoring Recovery Using Energy Consumption Indices

A methodology to monitor the socio-economic impact due to a catastrophic event in high spatial resolution, high frequency, and in homogenous manner within the entire affected area is indispensable to maintain an up-to-date overall picture of the event in disaster response/recovery operations. Energy consumption of the affected area is a promising index for long-term recovery monitoring. The energy consumption of an urbanized area strongly correlates with its socioeconomic activity. When an area is urbanized and developed, more energy is required to maintain it. Once a catastrophic event interrupts these activities, energy consumption of the area decreases. We have been studying ways to monitor long-term recovery using electric power supply data and the night time city light imagery data provided by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program as indices of energy consumption. In this paper, we introduce these methodologies and their application to recovery process monitoring after the Kobe earthquake in Japan and Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. The impact and following recovery process of those two catastrophic events were clearly depicted. These examples have shown both methodologies to be promising in monitoring the spaciotemporal distribution of impact due to events independent of the type of hazard. Recovery monitoring methodologies introduced in this paper provide a way to determine overall trends in recovery of affected areas macroscopically. For concrete policy making and support, a more detailed view is also needed to evaluate recovery conditions of different social and economic sectors and individual households and businesses. Both macroscopic and microscopic viewpoints are needed to appropriate response and recovery operations.