Evacuation behavior of 2020 Taal volcano eruption-affected households in Barangay Leynes, Talisay, Batangas, Philippines

The Philippines, which is located in the western Pacific region experiences frequent and destructive disasters. Evacuation is one of the measures to reduce the impacts of disasters. Understanding evacuation behavior and incorporating this into a comprehensive evacuation plan is still needed. This study aimed to understand the evacuation behavior of households from the area at high risk of the impacts of a volcanic eruption. The type of evacuation decision, mode, and accommodation type choice behavior were assessed, and models were developed for each of these evacuation-related behaviors. Discrete choice models were used to identify significant factors to evacuation behavior using actual evacuation data collected from households in Barangay Leynes, Talisay, Batangas, Philippines. Results showed that the calculated pseudo-R2 for the three evacuation-related models were in the range of 0.10-0.33, indicating an acceptable level of data fit in respective models. Additionally, the calculated area under the curve (AUC) for the three models range from 0.72 to 0.85 which means that the models’ level of discrimination was acceptable. Also, results of the internal validation calculated likelihood ratio (LR) were 0.83, 0.85 and 0.75, for the type of evacuation decision, mode, and accommodation type choice, respectively. These LR values are less than the critical values, indicating that model validity was established. In terms of significant factors, results showed that evacuation behavior was affected either positively or negatively by some sociodemographic and other variables such as number of household members, source of evacuation warning and vehicle ownership. The significant factors found in this study can be used in developing strategies for future evacuation operations.