In Search of A Better Land: Would People Move to A Country with Better Air Quality? A Global Survey Based on Twitter Data

Abstract

This study examines the statistical relationship between people's international movements and air quality. Utilizing randomized geo-tagged tweets obtained from Twitter Streaming API, we extract international movements that Twitter users have actually made. Coupling these movements with the air quality data across the world, we verify that Twitter users tend to move to countries of better air qualities. We also find that in most countries, the out-movement rate tends to be positively associated with the monthly air pollution concentration, and the number of movements to destination countries is negatively associated with the decrease in air pollution concentration in the origin countries.