Visual analytics of spatial interaction patterns for pandemic decision support

Population mobility, i.e. the movement and contact of individuals across geographic space, is one of the essential factors that determine the course of a pandemic disease spread. This research views both individual-based daily activities and a pandemic spread as spatial interaction problems, where locations interact with each other via the visitors that they share or the virus that is transmitted from one place to another. The research proposes a general visual analytic approach to synthesize very large spatial interaction data and discover interesting (and unknown) patterns. The proposed approach involves a suite of visual and computational techniques, including (1) a new graph partitioning method to segment a very large interaction graph into a moderate number of spatially contiguous subgraphs (regions); (2) a reorderable matrix, with regions 'optimally' ordered on the diagonal, to effectively present a holistic view of major spatial interaction patterns; and (3) a modified flow map, interactively linked to the reorderable matrix, to enable pattern interpretation in a geographical context. The implemented system is able to visualize both people's daily movements and a disease spread over space in a similar way. The discovered spatial interaction patterns provide valuable insight for designing effective pandemic mitigation strategies and supporting decision-making in time-critical situations.