Wanyun Shao

Wanyun Shao
University of Alabama | UA · Department of Geography

PhD

About

60
Publications
15,738
Reads
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1,339
Citations
Introduction
A geographer with research and teaching interests focused on hazards, vulnerability, and risk decision making.
Additional affiliations
August 2018 - August 2023
University of Alabama
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
August 2015 - August 2018
Auburn University in Montgomery
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
August 2015 - August 2018
Auburn University in Montgomery
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
Description
  • Geography of World Regions, Human Geography, Natural Hazards, Introduction to GIS

Publications

Publications (60)
Article
Full-text available
Due to climate change, the frequency and intensity of floods have dramatically increased worldwide. The innate social inequality has been exposed and even exacerbated by increasing flooding. It is imperative to assess flood risk in a comprehensive manner, accounting for both physical exposure and social vulnerability. Harris County in Texas, U.S.,...
Article
Full-text available
Machine learning (ML) models, particularly decision tree (DT)-based algorithms, are being increasingly utilized for flood susceptibility mapping. To evaluate the advantages of DT-based ML models over traditional statistical models on flood susceptibility assessment, a comparative study is needed to systematically compare the performances of DT- bas...
Article
Full-text available
The coastal community is confronted with heightened risks posed by climate change. Mobile Bay in the United States is a large estuarine system along the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) coast, providing critical ecosystem services for the nation. This region is however subject to increased urbanization and uncertain impacts of climate change. To ensure sustain...
Article
Access is one of the most important rights for persons with disabilities (PWDs), particularly for movement-challenged persons (MCPs). To adopt appropriate policy measures that ensure this right for MCPs, it is necessary to evaluate accessibility appropriately. There are, however, very few accessibility measures applicable to MCPs. The current study...
Article
One of the most critical issue facing humanity today is climate change, as the rising incidence of extreme weather events has surpassed the adaptive capacity of human societies. A fundamental transformation of the energy system is urgently needed to address this issue. To gain a better understanding of how exposure to extreme weather events and per...
Conference Paper
Natural disasters (e.g., winter storms, heat waves, and hurricanes) threaten residents’ energy services due to associated limited power supply or even power outages. Maintaining the desired level of residential energy services is critical. However, it is still unclear about the importance of each energy service to residents during disasters and how...
Article
Full-text available
In Louisiana's Capital Area Groundwater Conservation District (CAGWCD), extensive groundwater withdrawals from the Southern Hills Aquifer System have begun to accelerate the infiltration of saltwater into the aquifer's freshwater sands. This accelerated saltwater intrusion has the potential to reduce the amount of groundwater available for public c...
Article
Although comprised of America's most iconic and varied ecosystems and landmarks, the boundaries of national parks have received little attention. This study uses boundary data from the National Park Service and other sources with compactness measures calculated using Geographic Information Systems. Using two common measures of compactness, the Pols...
Article
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an unprecedented impact on Americans for over three years. To control the damage, a booster shot becomes increasingly necessary because the efficacy of the initial vaccine is waning and new variants of the virus are emerging. This study aims to understand factors at both individual and state levels that influence one...
Article
Full-text available
Changes in land use and land cover (LULC) have a considerable impact on land surface temperature (LST) and they are a major driver of climate change. Comprehending the relationship between LULC and LST is crucial when developing effective measures to mitigate the effects of climate change, especially since people in the global south are particularl...
Article
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The effectiveness of official warning dissemination and interpretation determines the adoption of protective actions in response to hurricane threat. This paper describes the development of a conceptual warning diffusion model that articulates the whole process of the hurricane warning diffusion and individual decision-making, drawing on emergency...
Article
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The southeastern United States has been identified as a region with high physical and social vulnerability to climate change and coastal hazards such as hurricanes and floods (Emrich and Cutter, 2011). The effects of these hazards are only expected to increase over time under climate change, so it is vital that the risk information is adequately co...
Article
Coastal regions such as the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts are highly vulnerable to extreme coastal hazards such as tropical cyclones and major hurricanes. The effects of these hazards pose a threat now and are expected to increase in the future, which highlights the need for coastal communities to receive and understand information regarding risks...
Article
Although evaluation of the accessibility of people with disability (PWDs) is necessary to design effective transportation policy measures to ensure better mobility for PWDs, little empirical research are available on this subject. This study thus aims to address this gap by developing a methodological framework and applying this framework to assess...
Article
Climate change is one major challenge that has brought substantial costs to the United States. To implement mitigation measures and gain public support, it is critical to understand Americans’ attitudes toward this issue. Our study investigates how carbon dependency, social capital, and political orientation influence public response to climate cha...
Article
Full-text available
The COVID-19 pandemic and associated prevention policies can directly or indirectly alter the sentiment of individuals while registering water pollution complaints, but observational evidence remains limited. Here, we conducted a sentiment analysis on over 10,000 water pollution complaints from residents in Alabama, USA (2012–2021) to better unders...
Article
Full-text available
During natural disasters, there is a noticeably increased use of social media sites such as Twitter. Substantial research on social media data use during disasters has been conducted in the past decade since various social media platforms have emerged and gained popularity. This research highlights a thorough examination of the textual content of u...
Article
Full-text available
We analyze a public dataset of rescue requests for the Houston Metropolitan Area during Hurricane Harvey (2017) from the Red Cross. This dataset contains information including the location, gender, and emergency description in each requester’s report. We reveal the spatial distribution of the rescue requests and its relationship with indicators of...
Article
Climate change has posed serious risks to coastal cities around the world. Effective urban disaster management calls for the coordination between the local government and residents. We propose a comprehensive framework to study urban disaster resilience under climate change with New Orleans of Louisiana in the U.S. as the study area. Municipal haza...
Article
Drought poses serious risks to society. There is, however, a lack of timely public awareness and sufficient public risk perceptions of this hazard due to its gradual onset. Timely and adequate public response is conducive to effective mitigation. It is imperative to understand how the public responds to drought. Using data from multiple sources, si...
Article
What makes one green in a green capital? Previous research on actions to combat climate change using large national samples identifies how socio-demographic attributes and attitudes and belief profiles condition an individual's propensity to take actions to improve the environment. Our approach investigates a smaller and more specific context – Cop...
Article
Dhaka, Bangladesh is one Asian city that is at high risk of earthquakes. Persons with physical disabilities, particularly movement-challenged persons (MCPs), is highly vulnerable to earthquakes because of their mobility impairment. This study aims to explore risk perceptions of earthquakes and knowledge about the response to earthquakes among MCPs...
Article
The COVID-19 pandemic poses unprecedented risks to the well-being of Americans. To control the pandemic, a sufficient proportion of the population needs to be vaccinated promptly. Despite the proven efficacy and widespread availability, vaccine distribution and administration rates remain low. Thus, it is important to understand the public behavior...
Conference Paper
To develop a sustainable, resilient, and more inclusive city for persons with disabilities (PWDs), their rights should be guaranteed to access a safe shelter in the event of disasters. To design effective policy measures to ensure better accessibility for PWDs, their current accessibility situation needs to be evaluated. Despite its importance, lit...
Conference Paper
Accessibility is one of the most important rights for Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), particularly for movement-challenged persons (MCPs). To adopt appropriate policy measures to ensure this right for MCPs, it is necessary to evaluate their accessibility appropriately. There are however rarely any accessibility measures to quantify MCP accessibil...
Article
The use of social media platforms such as Twitter significantly increases during natural hazards. With the emergence of several social media platforms over the past decade, many studies have investigated the applications of these platforms during calamities. This study presents a comprehensive spatiotemporal analysis of textual content from million...
Article
Full-text available
Catastrophic earthquakes stimulate information-seeking behaviors beyond the affected geographical boundaries; however, our understanding of the dynamics of global public interest in earthquakes remains limited. Herein, we harness Big Data to examine the dynamic patterns of global public interest, concerning 17 significant worldwide earthquakes over...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives: COVID-19 is the most challenging public health crisis in decades in the United States. It is imperative to enforce social distancing rules before any safe and effective vaccines are widely available. Policies without public support are destined to fail. This study aims to reveal factors that determine the American public support for six...
Article
Purpose To examine multilevel predictors on American public response to COVID-19. Design Multilevel study. Setting A national survey was conducted by Qualtrics from August 24 to September 11, 2020. The state-level variables were constructed on data from multiple sources. Subjects 2,440 respondents 18 years and older from all 50 states and D.C....
Article
Climate change poses unprecedented risks to human society. Ample scientific evidence suggests that greenhouse gas emissions are the primary contributor to climate change. Large-scale greenhouse gas emissions are mainly caused by the consumption of fossil fuels. Thus, promoting renewable energy is one key strategy to mitigate these emissions and com...
Article
The COVID–19 pandemic poses unprecedented risks to the health and well-being of the entire population in the U.S. To control the pandemic, it is imperative for individuals to take precautionary behaviors (e.g., wearing a mask, keeping social distance, washing hands frequently, etc.). The factors that influence individual behavioral response thus wa...
Article
Full-text available
Sea level rise (SLR) in the twenty-first century poses fundamental risks to coastal residents. The US Gulf of Mexico Coast (Gulf Coast) is among the regions experiencing the most rapid relative SLR. Beyond its increasing exposure to SLR and related coastal flooding, the Gulf Coast is home to a large population and displays high social vulnerability...
Article
Floods increasingly threaten disadvantaged communities around the globe. When limited financial resources are available, nature-based and community-based incremental adaptation that codifies existing actions and behaviours can help protect people and assets through risk reduction management. These adaptation measures mainly rely on non-financial ca...
Article
Climate extremes will be intensified and become more frequent. One of the regions where this is the case is the U.S. Gulf coast region. This region is susceptible to the impacts of climate extremes. This region has recently experienced large amounts of economic damages caused by high-impact hurricanes and floods. Meanwhile, drought can also pose se...
Article
Rationale COVID-19 poses an unprecedented level of risks to the public health and well-being in the United States. This pandemic has led to cascading effects such as rapidly rising unemployment rate, deteriorating mental health, and disturbed stock market among others. This disease presents an opportunity for social scientists to conduct a timely...
Article
This paper presents a comprehensive effort to analyze the relationship between Evangelical Protestant identity and religiosity along with socioeconomic characteristics, political predisposition, and extreme weather events on the one hand, and opinions toward global warming on the other. Using survey data from the Pew Research Center from 2006–2013...
Article
Full-text available
Flash flood is among the most catastrophic natural hazards which causes disruption in the environment and societies. Flash flood is mainly initiated by intense rainfall, and due to its rapid onset (within six hours of rainfall), taking action for effective response is challenging. Building resilience to flash floods require understanding of the soc...
Article
Full-text available
Climate change has become one of the signature issues that divide the American public. Numerous empirical studies of the past two decades have identified the politicization of this issue. In recent years, the concurrence of rising extreme weather events and uptick in public concern for climate change has led to common speculation that the former ma...
Article
Full-text available
Drought is a creeping climatological phenomenon with persistent precipitation deficits. Unlike rapid onset natural hazards such as floods and wildfires, the intangible and gradual characteristics of drought cause a lack of social response during the onset. The level of awareness of a local drought increases rapidly through mass media reports and on...
Article
Full-text available
Mental health studies have underscored the hazardous conditions of each phase of life, from youth and pre-adulthood through adulthood in the United States. This situation calls for increased public awareness of the mental health issue and better understanding of the significant factors associated with mental health hazard. The main objective of thi...
Article
Full-text available
What is the decision-making mechanism people rely upon to mitigate flood risk? Applying Bayesian Network modeling to a comprehensive survey dataset for the US Gulf Coast, we find that the overall support for flood mitigation can be inferred from flood insurance purchase behavior (i.e. without insurance versus with insurance purchased mandatorily, v...
Article
Full-text available
It is of significance to assess and depict community vulnerability to floods and hurricanes. Over the past several decades, flooding and hurricanes have affected millions of people and caused massive socio-economic losses. Despite efforts to reduce risks, these natural hazards remain to be a considerable challenge to coastal communities. In this pa...
Article
Full-text available
It is of significance to assess and depict community vulnerability to floods and hurricanes. Over the past several decades, flooding and hurricanes have affected millions of people and caused massive socio-economic losses. Despite efforts to reduce risks, these natural hazards remain to be a considerable challenge to coastal communities. In this pa...
Article
Full-text available
How does physical history of flood-related hazards affect individuals’ perceptions? The present study represents a unique effort to understand perceptions of flood hazards in light of the geographic background. Situated in Alabama, the United States, the cities of Mobile and Huntsville display two different physical geographic contexts. Despite one...
Article
Full-text available
Community risk perceptions can influence their abilities to cope with coastal hazards such as hurricanes and coastal flooding.Our study presents an initial effort to examine the relationship between community resilience and risk perception at the county level, through innovative construction of aggregate variables. Utilizing the 2012 Gulf Coast Cli...
Chapter
China has experienced a dramatic economic growth accompanied by a massive environmental degradation over the past four decades. This unprecedented level of environmental devastation has taken a toll on both public health and economic development. Being faced with severe environmental pollution, how does the Chinese public perceive its environment?...
Article
The economic damage from coastal flooding has dramatically increased over the past several decades, owing to rapid development in shoreline areas and possible effects of climate change. To respond to these trends, it is imperative for policy makers to understand individuals' support for flood adaptation policy. Using original survey data for all co...
Article
Over the past several decades, the economic damage from flooding in the coastal areas has greatly increased due to rapid coastal development coupled with possible climate change impacts. One effective way to mitigate excessive economic losses from flooding is to purchase flood insurance. Only a minority of coastal residents however have taken this...
Article
Full-text available
Heavy industrialization has resulted in contamination of soil by metals from anthropogenic sources in Anniston, Alabama. This situation calls for increased public awareness of the soil contamination issue and better knowledge of the main factors contributing to the potential sources contaminating residential soil. The purpose of this spatial epidem...
Article
2012 American National Election Study data supplemented with monthly temperature data from the United States Historical Climatology Network are used to examine how religion, politics, and weather and climate affect views of global warming. Evangelical fundamentalism is the most consistent factor among all religion-related variables in determining p...
Article
Full-text available
Objective To explore the effects of long‐term climate trends and short‐term weather fluctuations, evaluations of scientists and science, political predispositions, religious affiliation, the information environment, and demographic attributes on individuals’ views about whether global warming exists and, if so, whether it is a result of natural cyc...
Article
Full-text available
The scientific debate on the impact of climate change on hurricane intensity/strength continues. Regardless of its causes, the consequence of increasing hurricane intensity is undeniably immense among coastal residents. In this study, we investigate how various objective measures of hurricane strength affect people's perception of changing hurrican...
Article
What role do objective weather conditions play in coastal residents' perceptions of local climate shifts and how do these perceptions affect attitudes toward climate change? While scholars have increasingly investigated the role of weather and climate conditions on climate-related attitudes and behaviors, they typically assume that residents accura...
Article
I use one nationally representative sample from CBS News/New York Times Poll on Environment (2007), supplemented with monthly temperature and precipitation data from the United States Historical Climatology Network and extreme weather events data from National Climatic Data Center, to examine how different weather measures and individuals’ socio-de...
Article
Full-text available
Two series of national survey datasets (2001-10), supplemented with monthly temperature and precipitation data and unemployment data, are used to examine how weather and climate, economic performance, and individuals' sociodemographic backgrounds and political orientations affect public perceptions of global warming. Consistent with previous studie...

Questions

Question (1)
Question
I want to study human perceptions of water quality. There are multiple objective measures of water quality including arsenic, atrazine, DEHP, disinfection byproducts, nitrates, radium, PCE, TCE, uranium. If I were to select one of them to represent the general condition of water quality in a community, which one should I select? If none, how can I create an indicator to capture the general condition of water quality based on these various measures?

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