Digital Integration and Population Movement

Funded by Science and Industry Endowment Fund
Partners:	CSIRO’s Data 61, CSIRO’s Land and Water, University of Technology Sydney
Duration:	2019 – 2020

This project aims to make meaningful estimations of population location and movement with innovative approaches by using cross-domain data to find correlations between population movement and traffic demand, energy, real estate prices, digital integration and decision support, amongst others.

Data61 has been engaged by the Science and Industry Endowment Fund (SIEF) to undertake a comprehensive review and assessment of population movement, in collaboration with CSIRO Land and Water and the University of Technology Sydney. This project is part of the Data61 Cities & Energy Challenge, “E11 Prediction of population movement through cross domain data analysis”. Specifically, this project outlines the policy challenges in Australia of managing a rapidly growing population in major cities that are increasingly faced with pressures of congested infrastructure, inequity in accessibility of housing and jobs, and declining productivity.

The Distributed Systems Security group’s contribution to this project was largely around the investigation of digital usage in terms of population migration and movement. We specifically worked to identify connections between the incorporation of data driven initiatives in daily life and population changes in geographical areas. Through a concurrently running online survey and postal survey, we obtained responses from 560 people living in Western Sydney. Our research focused specifically on analysing their responses across four main themes:

• Day-to-day: Commute or connect
• Digital influence on choosing where to live
• Cyber-awareness and digital connectivity
• Awareness of diversity and non-equal digital impacts

The team is currently working on a number of publications to showcase our results. For more information on this project, please contact Marthie.Grobler@data61.csiro.au.