How is environmental justice reflected in the maps and why?

Environmental justice issues surface due when toxic producing sites are located near poor and/or minority communities. Essentially this is a distributional issue around harms (Bullard, 1996). Bullard was the first to publish on the relationship of solid waste sites and Black communities in Houston (US EPA, ND).

The maps show data from the Envirofacts Website on regulatory sites, as well as the location of SWMUs. Additionally, data collected during a 2016 citizen science project in Playa de Ponce illustrates high levels of bacteria in rivers crossing through the community. When these rivers flood, the sewage ends up in the street causing public health concerns.

Sources:

Bullard, R.D. (1996), Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.

US EPA. (ND). Environmental Justice. Website. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice

Why vacancy and abandonment of sites matter?

Beyond the obvious negatives of abandoned site in communities, such as attracting vermin, crime and illicit activity, empty sites cost municipalities in lost revenue (NVPC, 2005). They also result in more calls to police, fires, loss in property values for surrounding properties, and a spiral of negative socio-economic trends (NVPC, 2005).

Source:

National Vacant Properties Campaign. (2005). Vacant properties: The true costs to communities. Washington, DC. Retrieved from https://files.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/VacantPropertiesTrueCosttoCommunities.pdf

What about vulnerability?

Though climate change may affect everyone on the planet at one point or another, there's a growing understanding that climate harms classically vulnerable populations more than the wealthier set (EPA, 2021). The report lays out six vectors of climate impacts and their intersections with vulnerable communities.

Source:

EPA. 2021. Climate Change and Social Vulnerability in the United States: A Focus on Six Impacts. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA 430-R-21-003. Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2021-09/climate-vulnerability_september-2021_508.pdf

What about maladaptation?

At the bottom of the home page of this site, we individualized adaptation strategies illustrated in photography. The literature demonstrates that in the absence of a strong coordinated response to floods and flood risks (Measham et al., 2011; Dulal et al., 2009), people tap into the adaptation strategies that they can afford (Mycoo, 2014; Dolsak et al., 2018).

Sources:

Dolšak, N., & Prakash, A. (2018). The politics of climate change adaptation. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 43(1), 317-341. doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-102017-025739

Dulal, H., Shah, K., & Ahmad, N. (2009). Social equity considerations in the implementation of Caribbean climate change adaptation policies. Sustainability (Basel, Switzerland), 1(3), 363-383. doi:10.3390/su1030363

Measham, T. G., Preston, B. L., Smith, T. F., Brooke, C., Gorddard, R., Withycombe, G., & Morrison, C. (2011). Adapting to climate change through local municipal planning: Barriers and challenges. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 16(8), 889-909. doi:10.1007/s11027-011-9301-2

Mycoo, M. A. (2014). Autonomous household responses and urban governance capacity building for climate change adaptation: Georgetown, Guyana. Urban Climate, 9, 134-154. doi:https://doi-org.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/10.1016/j.uclim.2014.07.009