Environmental Equity and Air Toxics

Introduction

In the late 1970s and through the 1980s, people in the United States turned increasing attention toward toxic chemicals in the environment. Highly publicized toxic exposure incidents generated new standards for monitoring and regulating discharge of toxic chemicals into the environment. Given information about the location and proximity of harmful agents, researchers began to wonder whether any correlations existed between pollution and groups of people. Were some groups of people exposed to toxins more than others?

What if you were moving to a new area, say around Los Angeles, California? Would where you could afford to live affect your exposure to industrial hazards? Would the racial makeup of your neighborhood leave you more vulnerable to exposure to air toxics?

It may be tempting to assume that decades later people in the United States experience environmental equity. But rather than assume, in this lab you will examine the spatial relationship between air toxics and median income or race/ethnicity in Los Angeles County.

Location

Los Angeles County, California

Time to complete the lab

Six to eight hours

Prerequisites

Intermediate GIS skills

Data used in this lab

Cities (Esri)

Counties (Esri)

Freeways (Esri)

Highways and streets (Census)

Hydrology (US Geological Survey [USGS])

Places

Census tracts (Esri)

Toxic Release Inventory sites (US EPA)

State plane coordinate system, California Zone 5, NAD83