Power outage and environmental justice in Winter Storm Uri: an analytical workflow based on nighttime light remote sensing

The intensity of extreme weather events has been increasing, posing a unique threat to society and highlighting the importance of our electrical power system, a key component in our infrastructure. In severe weather events, quickly identifying power outage impact zones and affected communities is cr...

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Veröffentlicht in:International journal of digital earth Jg. 16; H. 1; S. 2259 - 2278
Hauptverfasser: Xu, Jinwen, Qiang, Yi, Cai, Heng, Zou, Lei
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Abingdon Taylor & Francis 02.10.2023
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Taylor & Francis Group
Schlagworte:
Angle of reflection
Blackouts
Census
Censuses
Disaster management
disaster resilience
Electric power
Electric power systems
Empirical equations
Environmental justice
equations
Extreme weather
infrastructure
Latinos
Luminous intensity
natural disaster
Night
Night-time
Nighttime
Nighttime light
Outages
Power failures
power outage
Remote sensing
Severe weather
snow
spatial analysis
Storms
Texas
Tracking
Weather
Winter
Winter storms
Workflow
Texas
ISSN:1753-8947, 1753-8955, 1753-8955
Online-Zugang:Volltext
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Zusammenfassung:The intensity of extreme weather events has been increasing, posing a unique threat to society and highlighting the importance of our electrical power system, a key component in our infrastructure. In severe weather events, quickly identifying power outage impact zones and affected communities is crucial for informed disaster response. However, a lack of household-level power outage data impedes timely and precise assessments. To address these challenges, we introduced an analytical workflow using NASA's Black Marble daily nighttime light (NTL) images to detect power outages from the 2021 Winter Storm Uri. This workflow includes adjustments to mitigate viewing angle and snow reflection effects. Power outage is detected by comparing storm-time and baseline (normal condition) NTL images using an empirical adjusted equation. The outcomes of the workflow are 500-meter resolution power outage maps, which have the optimal correlation with real outage tracking data when NTL intensity is reduced by 26%. With the resultant power outage maps, we analyzed the relations between power outages and disadvantaged populations in 126 Texas counties and 4182 census tracts to evaluate environmental justice in the storm. The results show that Latino/Hispanic communities tend to suffer more from power outages at both the county and census tract levels.
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ISSN:1753-8947
1753-8955
1753-8955
DOI:10.1080/17538947.2023.2224087