Research on the Application of Phone Location Data in the Rapid Delimitation of the Meizoseismal Area.

After an earthquake, rapidly assessing the affected areas, particularly the meizoseismal area, is crucial to emergency rescue work. Currently, many methods exist for delimiting the range of the area affected by an earthquake. The main method for estimating this area is to use an empirical model of the seismic intensity attenuation relationship. In contrast, this article uses the change rate (CR) of the phones' location data in an area after the earthquake to infer the extent of the meizoseismal area. This study selects phone location data from eight earthquakes for experimentation and analysis. The results show a correlation between the phone location data and the actual distribution of the meizoseismal area based on intensity maps that were issued by the China Earthquake Administration. According to the results, the extent of the meizoseismal area can be estimated by the magnitude, the focal depth, the CR, the time of the earthquake, and the distance to the epicenter. The magnitude, CR, and focal depth are dominant and are positively correlated with the intensity. Based on the aforementioned parameters, a calculation model for delimiting the extent of the meizoseismal area based on phone location data can be constructed. The accuracy of the correlation coefficient of fitting result is 0.7826, and the R² value is 0.6125. The results demonstrate that phone location data can be used to quickly delimit the meizoseismal area and can provide a basis for earthquake emergency rescue work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]