Abstract: The “triple population risk”—comprising low birth rates, an aging society, and regional extinction—warns of a severe demographic crisis in South Korea, necessitating both national strategies and localized responses (Lee et al., 2023). While the government designates “Population Decline Areas” to support local initiatives, these designations are often limited by their reliance on sub-indicators of social mobility. To overcome this, it is essential to provide timely and useful information for policy decision-making using big data (Choi, 2022). Inter-regional migration, which significantly impacts local demographic structures, is a social phenomenon reflecting individual decisions to seek a better quality of life, better jobs, and pleasant living environments (Lee et al., 2023). Furthermore, local economic activity—defined as the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services—is a critical factor; understanding economic flows requires an analysis of the activity trends of individual economic agents (Lee, 2022). Consequently, data on traffic and transaction volumes generated by population and economic flows can serve as indicators to measure spatial interconnectedness based on the degree of inter-regional linkage. Migration is categorized into long-term, medium-term, and short-term movements (Isard, 1975). Long-term movement refers to lifelong or multi-generational migration driven by religious or political factors; medium-term movement involves residential changes for periods shorter than a lifetime; and short-term movement includes temporary trips such as commuting, business travel, and tourism (Lee et al., 2010; Isard, 1975). Previous studies have often lacked a simultaneous examination of movements across different temporal resolutions, resulting in fragmented interpretations. Accordingly, this study explores the spatial patterns between heterogeneous datasets—specifically, active populations (short-term) and in-migrant populations (medium-term)—by examining their similarities and heterogeneities. Furthermore, to capture economic trends alongside mobility, the study explores spatial patterns between active populations and consumption patterns. This research applies the “BiFlowLISA” technique proposed by Tao and Thill (2020) to examine spatial patterns between heterogeneous datasets. This method measures the similarity of adjacent flow patterns between neighborhoods—selected based on spatial weights and Origin-Destination (OD) data—to determine inter-regional interconnectedness. For the analysis, inter-regional population traffic and consumption transaction data were reconstructed into OD formats. We identified patterns based on migration characteristics through a bivariate flow analysis of domestic migration statistics (medium-term) and mobile carrier active population data (short-term). Additionally, we examined consumption trends relative to individual mobility patterns by analyzing the bivariate flow between active population data and credit card consumption data. The analysis, focusing on population movement from Gongju-si to its surrounding areas, yielded the following results: The Gongju-Sejong flow showed low medium-term migration but high adjacent short-term movement. Conversely, the Gongju-Daejeon (Seo-gu) flow showed high medium-term migration but low adjacent short-term movement. Furthermore, the bivariate analysis of short-term movement and consumption revealed that the Cheongyang-Gongju flow had high short-term mobility but low adjacent consumption volume. These findings suggest that Gongju-si faces the risk of regional extinction due to the outflow of the settled population and low consumption by the active population. This study proposes that future designations of extinction-risk areas should consider diverse population migration and consumption flows and is expected to serve as foundational data for establishing support plans for such regions.

Recommended citation: Lee, S., Hwang, T., Hwang, C. S., & Lee, W. (2023, June). 공간분석기법을 활용한 지역 간 공간적 흐름의 유사성과 이질성 탐색 (Exploring similarities and heterogeneities of spatial flows between regions using spatial analysis techniques) [Paper presentation]. Proceedings of the Korean Geographical Society Conference Republic of Korea, 147-148.