Abstract
The advent of government transparency through online data publication should provide a transformative benefit to the information gathering practices of civic organizations and environmental advocates. However, environmental agencies and other reporters often disseminate this critical data only in siloed repositories and in technically complex, inconsistent formats, limiting its impact. We have developed a new open source web resource, the Archive of Massachusetts ENvironmental Data or AMEND, which curates information relating to federal, state, and local environmental stewardship in Massachusetts, focused on water quality. We describe the construction of AMEND, its operation, and the datasets we have integrated to date. This tool supports the development and advocacy of policy positions with published analyses that are fully reproducible, versioned, and archived online. As a case study, we present the first publicly reported analysis of the distributional impact of combined sewer overflows on Environmental Justice (EJ) communities. Our analysis of the historical geospatial distribution of these sewer overflows and block-level US Census data on EJ indicators tracking race, income, and linguistic isolation demonstrates that vulnerable communities in Massachusetts are significantly overburdened by this form of pollution. We discuss applications of this analysis to the state-level legislative process in Massachusetts. We believe that this approach to increasing the accessibility of regulatory data, and the code underlying AMEND, can serve as a model for other civic organizations seeking to leverage data to build trust with and advocate to policymakers and the public.
Highlights
Establishing trust between policymakers, civic organizations, and the public about the merits of policy decisions requires agreement on the facts underlying policy issues
This state policy identifies Environmental Justice (EJ) populations according to any one of three threshold criteria applied at the Census block group level: that 65% of the households fall below the statewide median income (“Low income” criteria); that 25% or more of residents identify as nonwhite (“non-white” criteria); or that 25% or more of households have no member over the age of fourteen who speaks English only or very well (“English Isolation” criteria)
We have proposed criteria for online data resources that can help to build trust in policy analysis between civic organizations, agencies, and the public
Summary
Establishing trust between policymakers, civic organizations, and the public about the merits of policy decisions requires agreement on the facts underlying policy issues. We have experienced that the existing set of tools is not supportive of stakeholders with less time, money, or technical expertise These users, including policymakers, civic organizations, journalists, and citizen advocates, have difficulty identifying, accessing, and using data resources. The diversity and scale of relevant, publicly available data is expanding due to new technologies and reporting requirements All these factors hamper stakeholders’ ability to do analysis that would inform their actions on the policy landscape. AMEND is an open access, integrated repository of environmental regulatory data and analysis focused on enhancing the use of evidence and accountability for water policy in Massachusetts and the New England region, which has been designed to adhere to the four principles outlined above.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
