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arXiv · 2112.06119

Visualizing Environmental Justice Issues in Urban Areas with a Community-based Approach

Joel Flax-Hatch·Sanjana Srabanti·Fabio Miranda·Apostolis Sambanis·Michael D. Cailas
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Abstract

According to environmental justice, environmental degradation and benefits should not be disproportionately shared between communities. Identifying disparities in the spatial distribution of environmental degradation is therefore a prerequisite for validating the state of environmental justice in a geographic region. Under ideal circumstances, environmental risk assessment is a preferred metric, but only when exposure levels have been quantified reliably after estimating the risk. In this study, we adopt a proximity burden metric caused by adjacent hazardous sources, allowing us to evaluate the environmental burden distribution and vulnerability to pollution sources. In close collaboration with a predominantly Latinx community in Chicago, we highlight the usefulness of our approach through a case study that shows how certain community areas in the city are likely to bear a disproportionate burden of environmental pollution caused by industrial roads.

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Joel Flax-Hatch, Sanjana Srabanti, Fabio Miranda, Apostolis Sambanis, Michael D. Cailas. 2021-12-12. Visualizing Environmental Justice Issues in Urban Areas with a Community-based Approach. https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.06119

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