Abstract
Communities adjacent to concentrated areas of industrial land use (CAILU) are exposed to elevated levels of pollutants during flood disasters. Many CAILU are also characterized by insufficient infrastructure, poor environmental quality, and socially vulnerable populations. Manchester, TX is a marginalized CAILU neighborhood proximate to several petrochemical industrial sites that is prone to frequent flooding. Pollutants from stormwater runoff discharge from industrial land uses into residential areas have created increased toxicant exposures. Working with local organizations, centers/institutes, stakeholders, and residents, public health researchers sampled air, water, indoor dust, and outdoor soil while researchers from landscape architecture and urban planning applied these findings to develop a community-scaled master plan. The plan utilizes land use and built environment changes to increase flood resiliency and decrease exposure to contaminants. Using a combination of models to assess the performance, costs, and benefits of green infrastructure and pollutant load impacts, the master plan is projected to capture 147,456 cubic feet of runoff, and create $331,400 of annual green benefits by reducing air pollution and energy use, providing pollution treatment, increase carbon dioxide sequestration, and improve groundwater replenishment. Simultaneously, there is a 41% decrease across all analyzed pollutants, reducing exposure to and transferal of toxic materials.
Highlights
Many neighborhoods located along the Houston Ship Channel, including Manchester, TX, have been documented as having excess risks of exposure to acute pollution, emergency chemical spills and incidents, and high-impact natural and manmade disaster events [1,2,3,4]
The Interstate Highway 610 Ship Channel Bridge, one of the busiest stretches of Interstate in Houston, carries tens of thousands of vehicles per day directly over residences in Manchester [10]. In response to these and other documented excess exposure and health inequities, this study aims to use community engaged research and citizen science methods to derive data-driven community master plans to reduce toxic exposure and enhance resilience
Developing new approaches to mitigate the impacts of flooding will become more important because, as the frequency and severity of both nuisance and major flooding increases globally, the threats to human and environmental health, in concentrated areas of industrial land use (CAILU) neighborhoods, will intensify
Summary
Many neighborhoods located along the Houston Ship Channel, including Manchester, TX, have been documented as having excess risks of exposure to acute pollution, emergency chemical spills and incidents, and high-impact natural and manmade disaster events [1,2,3,4]. These exposures have been linked to poor health outcomes including cancer clusters in both children (brain, leukemia, glioma, melanoma) and adults (liver, brain, cervical) [5]. Public Health 2020, 17, 486; doi:10.3390/ijerph17020486 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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