Contrasting impacts of heat stress on violent and nonviolent robbery in Beijing, China

Hu, X., Chen, P., Huang, H., Sun, T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2486-6146 and Li, D. (2017) Contrasting impacts of heat stress on violent and nonviolent robbery in Beijing, China. Natural Hazards, 87 (2). pp. 961-972. ISSN 0921-030X doi: 10.1007/s11069-017-2804-8

Abstract/Summary

Previous studies investigating the relation between heat stress and crime incidents often focus on violent crimes. In this study, the impacts of heat stress on two types of robbery (violent and nonviolent) in China are compared using crime statistics collected in Beijing and heat stress indices that consider the combined effects of temperature and humidity. The results indicate that the abrupt change in the trend of robbery rates is affected by the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The nonviolent robbery rates have a more pronounced seasonality and are better correlated with heat stress at daily scales, especially during the period from 2009 to 2014 when no trend exists. The results also demonstrate that both violent and nonviolent robbery rates significantly increase with heat stress in spring. The nonviolent robbery rates also significantly increase with heat stress in summer. The influence of heat stress on violent robbery rate is more complicated and nonlinear.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/71096
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
Publisher	Springer
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