Negative effects of severe weather events on public health and economy
Montassar H’Daya : Montassar.hdaya@gmail.com
March 21, 2015
Synopsis :
This analysis is to determine which type of events is the most harmfull and the effect of that events on economic consequences. We will use the estimates of fatalities, injuries, property and crop damage to decide which types of event are most harmful to the population health and economy. From these data, we found that excessive heat and tornado are most harmful with respect to population health, while flood, drought, and hurricane/typhoon have the greatest economic consequence
DATA :
The data for this analysis come in the form of a comma-separated-value file compressed via the bzip2 algorithm to reduce its size. Here you will find the CSV files : http://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/repdata%2Fdata%2FStormData.csv.bz2
Here you will find how some of the variables are constructed/defined : https://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/repdata%2Fpeer2_doc%2Fpd01016005curr.pdf
The events in the database start in the year 1950 and end in November 2011. In the earlier years of the database there are generally fewer events recorded, most likely due to a lack of good records. More recent years should be considered more complete.
Introduction
This report contains many figuures which show the different impacts of Storms and other severe weather events on both public health and economy. In this document, we start by processing data and then we plot some of our resilts in order to clearly show the event with the most negative impact on health and economy.
Data Processing :
Basic settings :
First and foremost , to make the code visble we should put echo = True and to turn off the scientific notations of numbers scipen=1. We also should load all the packages needed to process the data.
echo = TRUE # Always make code visible
options(scipen = 1) # Turn off scientific notations for numbers
library(R.utils)## Loading required package: R.oo
## Loading required package: R.methodsS3
## R.methodsS3 v1.7.0 (2015-02-19) successfully loaded. See ?R.methodsS3 for help.
## R.oo v1.19.0 (2015-02-27) successfully loaded. See ?R.oo for help.
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## Attaching package: 'R.oo'
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## The following objects are masked from 'package:methods':
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## getClasses, getMethods
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## The following objects are masked from 'package:base':
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## attach, detach, gc, load, save
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## R.utils v2.0.0 (2015-02-28) successfully loaded. See ?R.utils for help.
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## Attaching package: 'R.utils'
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## The following object is masked from 'package:utils':
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## cat, commandArgs, getOption, inherits, isOpen, parse, warningslibrary(ggplot2)
library(plyr)
require(gridExtra)## Loading required package: gridExtra
## Loading required package: gridThen, we read the generated csv file. If the data already exists in the working environment, we do not need to load it again. Otherwise, we read the csv file.
#if (!"stormData.csv.bz2" %in% dir("C:/Usersmy_dataAdmin/Documents/R1/directoryR")){
url <- "http://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/repdata%2Fdata%2FStormData.csv.bz2"
file <- "stormData"
download.file(url, file ) #, method = "curl")
dateDownloaded <- date()
dateDownloaded## [1] "Sun Mar 22 00:14:52 2015"# bunzip2(file, destname=sprintf("%s.%s", file), exdir = "~/R1/directoryR",overwrite=T, remove=F)
# Set The working directory :
setwd("C:/Users/Admin/Documents/R1/directoryR")
# Read in data file:
stormData <- read.csv("C:/Users/Admin/Documents/R1/directoryR/repdata-data-StormData.csv/repdata-data-StormData.csv")
str(stormData)## 'data.frame': 902297 obs. of 37 variables:
## $ STATE__ : num 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
## $ BGN_DATE : Factor w/ 16335 levels "1/1/1966 0:00:00",..: 6523 6523 4242 11116 2224 2224 2260 383 3980 3980 ...
## $ BGN_TIME : Factor w/ 3608 levels "00:00:00 AM",..: 272 287 2705 1683 2584 3186 242 1683 3186 3186 ...
## $ TIME_ZONE : Factor w/ 22 levels "ADT","AKS","AST",..: 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7 ...
## $ COUNTY : num 97 3 57 89 43 77 9 123 125 57 ...
## $ COUNTYNAME: Factor w/ 29601 levels "","5NM E OF MACKINAC BRIDGE TO PRESQUE ISLE LT MI",..: 13513 1873 4598 10592 4372 10094 1973 23873 24418 4598 ...
## $ STATE : Factor w/ 72 levels "AK","AL","AM",..: 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 ...
## $ EVTYPE : Factor w/ 985 levels " HIGH SURF ADVISORY",..: 834 834 834 834 834 834 834 834 834 834 ...
## $ BGN_RANGE : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ BGN_AZI : Factor w/ 35 levels ""," N"," NW",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
## $ BGN_LOCATI: Factor w/ 54429 levels "","- 1 N Albion",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
## $ END_DATE : Factor w/ 6663 levels "","1/1/1993 0:00:00",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
## $ END_TIME : Factor w/ 3647 levels ""," 0900CST",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
## $ COUNTY_END: num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ COUNTYENDN: logi NA NA NA NA NA NA ...
## $ END_RANGE : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ END_AZI : Factor w/ 24 levels "","E","ENE","ESE",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
## $ END_LOCATI: Factor w/ 34506 levels "","- .5 NNW",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
## $ LENGTH : num 14 2 0.1 0 0 1.5 1.5 0 3.3 2.3 ...
## $ WIDTH : num 100 150 123 100 150 177 33 33 100 100 ...
## $ F : int 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 3 3 ...
## $ MAG : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ FATALITIES: num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 ...
## $ INJURIES : num 15 0 2 2 2 6 1 0 14 0 ...
## $ PROPDMG : num 25 2.5 25 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 25 25 ...
## $ PROPDMGEXP: Factor w/ 19 levels "","-","?","+",..: 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 ...
## $ CROPDMG : num 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ CROPDMGEXP: Factor w/ 9 levels "","?","0","2",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
## $ WFO : Factor w/ 542 levels ""," CI","$AC",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
## $ STATEOFFIC: Factor w/ 250 levels "","ALABAMA, Central",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
## $ ZONENAMES : Factor w/ 25112 levels ""," "| __truncated__,..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
## $ LATITUDE : num 3040 3042 3340 3458 3412 ...
## $ LONGITUDE : num 8812 8755 8742 8626 8642 ...
## $ LATITUDE_E: num 3051 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ LONGITUDE_: num 8806 0 0 0 0 ...
## $ REMARKS : Factor w/ 436774 levels "","-2 at Deer Park\n",..: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ...
## $ REFNUM : num 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...There are 902297 rows and 37 columns in total. The events in the database start in the year 1950 and end in November 2011.
Histogramme of storm data by year 1959 to 2011 :
stormData$year <- as.numeric(format(as.Date(stormData$BGN_DATE, format = "%m/%d/%Y %H:%M:%S"), "%Y"))
hist(stormData$year, breaks = 37, col = "grey")
Based on the above histogram, we see that the number of events tracked starts to significantly increase around 1995. So, we use the subset of the data from 1990 to 2011 to get most out of good records. Now, there are 681500 rows and 38 columns in total.
storm <- stormData[stormData$year >= 1995, ]
hist(stormData$year, breaks = 30)
dim(storm)## [1] 681500 38Impact on Public Health
In this section, we check the number of fatalities and injuries that are caused by the severe weather events. We would like to get the first 20 most severe types of weather events for the period from 1995-2011.
sortHelper <- function(fieldName, top = 15, dataset = stormData) {
index <- which(colnames(dataset) == fieldName)
field <- aggregate(dataset[, index], by = list(dataset$EVTYPE), FUN = "sum")
names(field) <- c("EVTYPE", fieldName)
field <- arrange(field, field[, 2], decreasing = T)
field <- head(field, n = top)
field <- within(field, EVTYPE <- factor(x = EVTYPE, levels = field$EVTYPE))
return(field)
}
fatalities <- sortHelper("FATALITIES", dataset = storm)
injuries <- sortHelper("INJURIES", dataset = storm)Impact on Economy
We will convert the property damage and crop damage data into comparable numerical forms according to the meaning of units described in the code book (Storm Events). Both PROPDMGEXP and CROPDMGEXP columns record a multiplier for each observation where we have Hundred (H), Thousand (K), Million (M) and Billion (B).
convertHelper <- function(dataset = storm, fieldName, newFieldName) {
totalLen <- dim(dataset)[2]
index <- which(colnames(dataset) == fieldName)
dataset[, index] <- as.character(dataset[, index])
logic <- !is.na(toupper(dataset[, index]))
dataset[logic & toupper(dataset[, index]) == "B", index] <- "9"
dataset[logic & toupper(dataset[, index]) == "M", index] <- "6"
dataset[logic & toupper(dataset[, index]) == "K", index] <- "3"
dataset[logic & toupper(dataset[, index]) == "H", index] <- "2"
dataset[logic & toupper(dataset[, index]) == "", index] <- "0"
dataset[, index] <- as.numeric(dataset[, index])
dataset[is.na(dataset[, index]), index] <- 0
dataset <- cbind(dataset, dataset[, index - 1] * 10^dataset[, index])
names(dataset)[totalLen + 1] <- newFieldName
return(dataset)
}
storm <- convertHelper(storm, "PROPDMGEXP", "propertyDamage")## Warning in convertHelper(storm, "PROPDMGEXP", "propertyDamage"): NAs
## introduced by coercionstorm <- convertHelper(storm, "CROPDMGEXP", "cropDamage")## Warning in convertHelper(storm, "CROPDMGEXP", "cropDamage"): NAs
## introduced by coercionnames(storm)## [1] "STATE__" "BGN_DATE" "BGN_TIME" "TIME_ZONE"
## [5] "COUNTY" "COUNTYNAME" "STATE" "EVTYPE"
## [9] "BGN_RANGE" "BGN_AZI" "BGN_LOCATI" "END_DATE"
## [13] "END_TIME" "COUNTY_END" "COUNTYENDN" "END_RANGE"
## [17] "END_AZI" "END_LOCATI" "LENGTH" "WIDTH"
## [21] "F" "MAG" "FATALITIES" "INJURIES"
## [25] "PROPDMG" "PROPDMGEXP" "CROPDMG" "CROPDMGEXP"
## [29] "WFO" "STATEOFFIC" "ZONENAMES" "LATITUDE"
## [33] "LONGITUDE" "LATITUDE_E" "LONGITUDE_" "REMARKS"
## [37] "REFNUM" "year" "propertyDamage" "cropDamage"options(scipen=999)
property <- sortHelper("propertyDamage", dataset = storm)
crop <- sortHelper("cropDamage", dataset = storm)Results
As for the impact on public health, we have got two sorted lists of severe weather events below by the number of people badly affected.
fatalities## EVTYPE FATALITIES
## 1 EXCESSIVE HEAT 1903
## 2 TORNADO 1545
## 3 FLASH FLOOD 934
## 4 HEAT 924
## 5 LIGHTNING 729
## 6 FLOOD 423
## 7 RIP CURRENT 360
## 8 HIGH WIND 241
## 9 TSTM WIND 241
## 10 AVALANCHE 223
## 11 RIP CURRENTS 204
## 12 WINTER STORM 195
## 13 HEAT WAVE 161
## 14 THUNDERSTORM WIND 131
## 15 EXTREME COLD 126injuries## EVTYPE INJURIES
## 1 TORNADO 21765
## 2 FLOOD 6769
## 3 EXCESSIVE HEAT 6525
## 4 LIGHTNING 4631
## 5 TSTM WIND 3630
## 6 HEAT 2030
## 7 FLASH FLOOD 1734
## 8 THUNDERSTORM WIND 1426
## 9 WINTER STORM 1298
## 10 HURRICANE/TYPHOON 1275
## 11 HIGH WIND 1093
## 12 HAIL 916
## 13 WILDFIRE 911
## 14 HEAVY SNOW 751
## 15 FOG 718And the following is a pair of graphs of total fatalities and total injuries affected by these severe weather events.
fatalitiesPlot <- qplot(EVTYPE, data = fatalities, weight = FATALITIES, geom = "bar", binwidth = 1) +
scale_y_continuous("Number of Fatalities") +
theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45,
hjust = 1)) + xlab("Severe Weather Type") +
ggtitle("Total Fatalities by Severe Weather\n Events in the U.S.\n from 1995 - 2011")
injuriesPlot <- qplot(EVTYPE, data = injuries, weight = INJURIES, geom = "bar", binwidth = 1) +
scale_y_continuous("Number of Injuries") +
theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45,
hjust = 1)) + xlab("Severe Weather Type") +
ggtitle("Total Injuries by Severe Weather\n Events in the U.S.\n from 1995 - 2011")
grid.arrange(fatalitiesPlot, injuriesPlot, ncol = 2)
Based on the above histograms, we find that excessive heat and tornado cause most fatalities; tornato causes most injuries in the United States from 1995 to 2011.
As for the impact on economy, we have got two sorted lists below by the amount of money cost by damages.
property## EVTYPE propertyDamage
## 1 FLOOD 144022037057
## 2 HURRICANE/TYPHOON 69305840000
## 3 STORM SURGE 43193536000
## 4 TORNADO 24935939545
## 5 FLASH FLOOD 16047794571
## 6 HAIL 15048722103
## 7 HURRICANE 11812819010
## 8 TROPICAL STORM 7653335550
## 9 HIGH WIND 5259785375
## 10 WILDFIRE 4759064000
## 11 STORM SURGE/TIDE 4641188000
## 12 TSTM WIND 4482361440
## 13 ICE STORM 3643555810
## 14 THUNDERSTORM WIND 3399282992
## 15 HURRICANE OPAL 3172846000crop## EVTYPE cropDamage
## 1 DROUGHT 13922066000
## 2 FLOOD 5422810400
## 3 HURRICANE 2741410000
## 4 HAIL 2614127070
## 5 HURRICANE/TYPHOON 2607872800
## 6 FLASH FLOOD 1343915000
## 7 EXTREME COLD 1292473000
## 8 FROST/FREEZE 1094086000
## 9 HEAVY RAIN 728399800
## 10 TROPICAL STORM 677836000
## 11 HIGH WIND 633561300
## 12 TSTM WIND 553947350
## 13 EXCESSIVE HEAT 492402000
## 14 THUNDERSTORM WIND 414354000
## 15 HEAT 401411500And the following is a pair of graphs of total property damage and total crop damage affected by these severe weather events.
propertyPlot <- qplot(EVTYPE, data = property, weight = propertyDamage, geom = "bar", binwidth = 1) +
theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1)) + scale_y_continuous("Property Damage in US dollars")+
xlab("Severe Weather Type") + ggtitle("Total Property Damage by\n Severe Weather Events in\n the U.S. from 1995 - 2011")
cropPlot<- qplot(EVTYPE, data = crop, weight = cropDamage, geom = "bar", binwidth = 1) +
theme(axis.text.x = element_text(angle = 45, hjust = 1)) + scale_y_continuous("Crop Damage in US dollars") +
xlab("Severe Weather Type") + ggtitle("Total Crop Damage by \nSevere Weather Events in\n the U.S. from 1995 - 2011")
grid.arrange(propertyPlot, cropPlot, ncol = 2)
Based on the above histograms, we find that flood and hurricane/typhoon cause most property damage; drought and flood causes most crop damage in the United States from 1995 to 2011.
Conclusion
From these data, we found that excessive heat and tornado are most harmful with respect to population health, while flood, drought, and hurricane/typhoon have the greatest economic consequences.