Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Environmental Research Letters
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Publication Date
12-22-2015
Volume
10
Issue
12
Disciplines
Civil Rights and Discrimination | Demography, Population, and Ecology | Environmental Law | Environmental Policy | Environmental Studies | Geographic Information Sciences | Human Geography | Inequality and Stratification | Other Political Science | Place and Environment | Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies | Race and Ethnicity | Urban Studies and Planning
Abstract
A considerable number of quantitative analyses have been conducted in the past several decades that demonstrate the existence of racial and socioeconomic disparities in the distribution of a wide variety of environmental hazards. The vast majority of these have been cross-sectional, snapshot studies employing data on hazardous facilities and population characteristics at only one point in time. Although some limited hypotheses can be tested with cross-sectional data, fully understanding how present-day disparities come about requires longitudinal analyses that examine the demographic characteristics of sites at the time of facility siting and track demographic changes after siting. Relatively few such studies exist and those that do exist have often led to confusing and contradictory findings. In this paper we review the theoretical arguments, methods, findings, and conclusions drawn from existing longitudinal environmental justice studies. Our goal is to make sense of this literature and to identify the direction future research should take in order to resolve confusion and arrive at a clearer understanding of the processes and contributory factors by which present-day racial and socioeconomic disparities in the distribution of environmental hazards have come about. Such understandings also serve as an important step in identifying appropriate and effective societal responses to ameliorate environmental disparities.
Keywords
environmental justice, environmental racism, environmental disparities, longitudinal studies, racial disparities, environmental justice theory, environmental justice evidence
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/125011
Rights
© 2015 IOP Publishing Ltd.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Paul Mohai and Robin Saha 2015 Environ. Res. Lett. 10 125011
Included in
Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Demography, Population, and Ecology Commons, Environmental Law Commons, Environmental Policy Commons, Environmental Studies Commons, Geographic Information Sciences Commons, Human Geography Commons, Inequality and Stratification Commons, Other Political Science Commons, Place and Environment Commons, Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Urban Studies and Planning Commons