نوع مقاله : مقاله علمی پژوهشی
نویسندگان
1 کارشناسی ارشد جغرافیا گرایش مخاطرات محیطی، گروه جغرافیا و سیستمهای اطلاعات جغرافیایی (GIS)، دانشکده ادبیات و علوم انسانی، دانشگاه گلستان، ایران
2 دانشیار گروه جغرافیا و سیستمهای اطلاعات جغرافیایی (GIS)، دانشگاه گلستان، ایران
کلیدواژهها
عنوان مقاله English
نویسندگان English
Background and Objective: Despite the widespread implementation of road traffic restrictions in Iran during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is little quantitative evidence regarding the spatial effectiveness of these policies at the intra-provincial scale. The present study aimed to analyze the impact of traffic restrictions on the spatiotemporal dynamics of COVID-19 in Kurdistan Province and to test five quantitative hypotheses.
Methodology: In this study, a balanced panel of 10 counties of Kurdistan Province was constructed for the period 2019–2022, and spatial autocorrelation was examined using the Global Moran's I index. A spatial lag panel model with random effects and a K-nearest neighbor weight matrix was estimated. The policy variable (the proportion of months with travel bans) was extracted from the announcements of the National COVID-19 Taskforce and entered into the model in the form of interaction terms with traffic and migration variables. Direct, indirect, and total effects were calculated through matrix inversion (I − λW)⁻¹, and the robustness of the results was assessed using six different spatial weight matrices.
Results and Findings: The Global Moran's I index was non-significant for all years (p-value > 0.05); however, the spatial lag model revealed a strong and significant spatial autoregressive coefficient (λ = 0.812, p < 0.001) (confirming H2). The coefficient for "bus travel" was positive and significant (β = 0.100, p = 0.004), whereas the coefficient for "private car travel", contrary to expectations, was negative and significant (β = -0.0073, p < 0.001) (partially confirming H1). The interaction terms of restrictions with car and bus traffic were nonsignificant (rejecting H3). The "restrictions × migration" interaction was positive and significant (β = 0.271, p = 0.045) (confirming H4). Hypothesis H5 was not tested due to the absence of daily mortality data. For all variables, spillover effects outweighed direct effects (for main road density: direct effect = 2.275 versus indirect effect = 5.706). The results remained robust across the six weight matrices. Hence, uniform road traffic restrictions, in the absence of essential travel management, shifted the disease transmission pathway from public travel to exempted migrations. The strong spatial autocorrelation and the predominance of spillover effects necessitate the design of regional and coordinated inter-county interventions. Policy evaluation in regions with a small number of spatial units requires advanced spatial models, and simple tests such as Moran's I are insufficient.
کلیدواژهها English
