Spatial–temporal human exposure modeling based on land-use at a regional scale in China

• The spatial–temporal human exposure model is proposed based on land use patterns.
• Regional scale correlation between human types and land-use patterns is established.
• Variance algorithms to disaggregate various human types to the land are constructed.
• The model is applied to a case study for the potential human exposure in Dalian City.
• Results can be used for regional vulnerability assessment or risk evaluation.

Regional human exposure to the hazard is an important basis of decision support for more efficient and effective emergency management especially pre-event. Due to the diverse locations of human activities and the displacements they induce, the spatial distribution of population is inhomogeneous and strongly time-dependent. Hence, in the present work, land use pattern was introduced to reflect the distribution characteristics of human exposure in hazard affected regions both in daytime and nighttime. Human activities that contribute to spatial distribution variance were considered to establish the correlation between human types and land-use patterns at a regional scale. Furthermore, hypergraph was used to model the regional human exposure in order to benefit the analysis of spatial–temporal distribution characteristics of population, and variance algorithms for disaggregating different styles of human to the regional land were constructed. What’s more, the model was applied to the analysis of potential human exposure in the built district of Dalian City. Results show that a great amount of area and population are beyond moderate exposure levels on urban construction land of Dalian City, and the population potentially exposed significantly increases from nighttime to daytime periods, especially in the zones with diverse human activities. The presented approach in this study can not only be of utmost importance for vulnerability assessment or risk evaluation, but also for regional and environmental planning as well as local development.

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