Mapping for Environmental Justice

Mapping for Environmental Justice aims to create easy-to-use, publicly-available maps that paint a holistic picture of intersecting environmental, social, and health impacts experienced by communities across the US.

About the Project

Mapping for Environmental Justice (MEJ) is an initiative to create interactive and publicly-accessible maps displaying environmental justice data for individual states. With guidance from the residents of impacted communities, MEJ combines environmental, public health, and demographic data into an indicator of vulnerability for communities in every state. 

These maps create a powerful picture of environmental justice by combining individual indicators to paint a holistic picture of the cumulative impacts experienced by different communities. For example, analyzing diesel pollution, rent burden, social determinants of health, or poverty data alone tell different stories, but when combined, we see how these factors are interrelated and compounding. The maps make this data accessible, understandable, and most importantly, actionable. 

MEJ follows in the footsteps of Washington’s Environmental Health Disparities Map and California’s CalEnviroScreen. While the MEJ maps are based on these previous states’ examples, they will differ and expand on these maps using community feedback. MEJ’s goal is to fill an existing data gap for individual states without environmental justice mapping tools, and to provide a valuable tool for advocates, scholars, students, lawyers, and policy makers. 

To see our demonstration map, and find more information about the project, please visit Mapping For EJ. 

Advancing Environmental and Health Justice

CalEnviroScreen and the Washington Environmental Health Disparities Map demonstrate how maps like this can advance environmental justice. For example, state agencies use CalEnviroScreen to direct millions of dollars to projects that benefit the most vulnerable communities. California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA), a state-wide, community-led alliance, describes how that map “provides a scientific assessment that corroborates the lived experiences of many Californians.” (California Environmental Justice Alliance. CalEnviroScreen: A Critical Tool for Achieving Environmental Justice in California. 2018.) MEJ aspires to provide every state with this information, knowing that our systems privilege quantitative data when making policy decisions. 

The importance of mapping health, environmental, and economic vulnerability together has been thrown into stark relief by the current COVID-19 pandemic. As of early April 2020, economically and socially vulnerable populations are being hit the hardest by COVID-19 infections and deaths. Long-term exposure to environmental hazards is linked to the most severe outcomes. This pandemic highlights the importance of addressing the disparities highlighted in maps like ours and the urgency of this data need, but the changing policies and practices that exacerbate these health disparities will have long-term life-saving impacts as well. 

Informing Planning and Policy

Our system often privileges data over lived experience. Advocates can use this map to support what they already know about their communities with open, accessible, and multi-dimensional data. These maps demonstrate the intersection of poverty, racial discrimination, and pollution to audiences who may have a hard time hearing the stories residents have been telling for years.  

This map can also assist state agencies in targeting regulations at neighborhood- and census-tract specificity and granularity. By more accurately identifying these impacted neighborhoods and census tracts, we can more effectively target resources and programming. This map can help create protections for some of the most vulnerable communities in your state. 

About Our Team

MEJ is spearheaded by a group of four MPP graduates of GSPP: Kelly Armijo, Adam Buchholz, Irene Farnsworth, and Kimia Pakdaman. The project is advised by experts from CalEnviroScreen and the Center for Environmental Public Policy. We are passionate about creating a more economically and environmentally just society, and have backgrounds in data science, policy advocacy, education, and community outreach. We view access to data as an important tool for advancing policy change. A team of undergraduate data science students assists with the data assembly, cleaning, and analysis portion of the project.

We recognize that we are not experts in the environmental justice issues facing communities around the country. Our team is dedicated to outreach and collaboration with environmental justice communities, community-based organizations, activists, state agencies, and policy leaders to ensure that each map is tailored to the priorities and needs of states. Our team is here to serve as a technical assistant to organizers and grassroots advocates who seek to use the tool to advance environmental justice priorities in their communities.

Contact Us: hello@mappingforej.org

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