Data-Driven Just Resilience: Assessing the Impact of Environmental and Weather Conditions on Wheelchair Mobility

[Context and Rationale] Mobility is a fundamental prerequisite for education, economic activity, and social participation. Consequently, ensuring seamless movement for all citizens is a core pillar in building long-term climate change adaptation capacity. Despite its significance, wheelchair users continue to face severe structural and environmental constraints. The first step toward addressing these inequalities lies in securing high-fidelity, empirical mobility data, which is currently a critical gap in social inclusion research.

[Methodology and Data Fusion] The Institute of Comparative Governance (ICG) specializes in generating precise mobility datasets by equipping power wheelchairs with GPS tracking devices. Our analytical framework offers unique insights through data fusion:

• Weather Data Integration: By correlating GPS tracks with longitudinal meteorological data, we quantify how specific weather conditions (e.g., heatwaves, precipitation) disproportionately impact the mobility of wheelchair users.

• Geospatial & Regional Analysis: By integrating regional infrastructure information, we analyze how local urban characteristics and environmental barriers influence the movement patterns and social exclusion of people with disabilities.

[Proven Track Record] We have successfully completed pilot data generation and conducted a primary analysis. Our existing findings demonstrate the significant correlation between environmental variables and the daily mobility constraints of wheelchair users, providing a solid foundation for evidence-based policy making.