  The ability to measure and track the speed and trajectory of a community's
post-disaster recovery is essential to inform resource allocation and
prioritization. The current survey-based approaches to examining community
recovery, however, have significant lags and put the burden of data collection
on affected people. Also, the existing literature lacks quantitative measures
for important milestones to inform the assessment of recovery trajectory.
Recognizing these gaps, this study uses location-based data related to
visitation patterns and credit card transactions to specify critical recovery
milestones related to population activity recovery. Using data from 2017
Hurricane Harvey in Harris County (Texas), the study specifies four critical
post-disaster recovery milestones and calculates quantitative measurements of
the length of time between the end of a hazard event and when the spatial areas
(census tracts) reached these milestones based on fluctuations in visits to
essential and non-essential facilities, and essential and non-essential credit
card transactions. Accordingly, an integrated recovery metric is created for an
overall measurement of each spatial area's recovery progression. Exploratory
statistical analyses were conducted to examine whether variations in community
recovery progression in achieving the critical milestones is correlated to its
flood status, socioeconomic characteristics, and demographic composition.
Finally, the extent of spatial inequality is examined. The results show the
presence of moderate spatial inequality in population activity recovery in
Hurricane Harvey, based upon which the inequality of recovery is measured.
Results of this study can benefit post-disaster recovery resource allocation as
well as improve community resilience towards future natural hazards.
