Environmental Justice Research Articles

Using the 12-item short-form health survey (SF-12) to evaluate self-rated health in an environmental justice community

The Greater Fifth Ward (GFW) is a Northeast Houston, Texas, neighborhood with a legacy of industrial contamination and a confirmed cancer cluster. To understand self-rated health in the GFW, community-based participatory research (CBPR), was used to promote the inclusion of all partners. CBPR involves the community during each stage of the research process from design to research dissemination. A complete census was conducted, and 114 surveys were obtained in the environmental justice (EJ) community from July to November 2021. EJ communities shoulder an unfair burden of environmental exposures, pollution, and poor built environments. Mental and physical health were measured using the validated 12-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12v2). We posited that the Black or African American (Black/AA) community would have lower mental composite scores (MCS) and physical composite scores (PCS) compared to the nation and their White counterparts. The MCS and PCS were calculated and compared against the national mean. Overall, participants had higher MCS and lower PCS than the national mean. Black/AA males and females had lower MCS compared to their White counterparts. White females had the lowest PCS among all respondents, significantly lower than the national average. MCS was lower among those who lived in the neighborhood longer. Burdens from pollution may impact residents’ health and perceived health. Targeted interventions or programs that improve mental or physical health would benefit this community and other inequitably burdened neighborhoods.

Persistent Environmental Injustice due to Brake and Tire Wear Emissions and Heavy-Duty Trucks in Future California Zero-Emission Fleets.

The adoption of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) offers multiple benefits for the climate, air quality, and public health by reducing tailpipe emissions. However, the environmental justice implications of the nonexhaust emissions from future ZEV fleets for near-roadway communities remain unclear. Here, we model the on-road fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions across all California counties and assess the near-roadway exposure disparities at the census block group level in the Los Angeles County in 2050, when almost all passenger vehicles are projected to be ZEVs. We found that promoting zero-emission heavy-duty trucks generates more air quality benefits for disadvantaged communities than light-duty passenger vehicles. Persistent disparities in near-roadway PM2.5 levels, however, exist due to the remaining brake and tire wear emissions and increased truck traffic in disadvantaged communities. We recommend implementing fleet-specific ZEV policies to address brake and tire wear emissions and optimizing freight structures to address these persistent environmental justice issues in California.

Truth-telling about (Teacher) education as settler-colonial project: ‘The past is always with us’

ABSTRACT One of the Editors’ 2022 Challenges to the Field was: What is the story this government wants us to tell our children? What is education for? Continuing this conversation leads to a related question: What can be learnt from reviewing the history of schooling in Australia in this light? I argue here that the nation’s founding discourse of White Australia produced a purposeful project of schooling and teacher education designed to ‘keep rural Australia white’. This also led to the disassociation of rural education and Aboriginal education that remains problematic for rural schools today. As a form of truth-telling from a non-Indigenous perspective, I offer a basis for reflection on the extent to which 21st Century educational practices continue to (re)produce this discourse. Understanding the past – about how the newly federated Australian states century set out to educate their future citizens – is crucial for teacher education aiming for social and environmental justice and change. An anti-colonialist reading of this history of colonial settler schooling might help us understand why the discourse of White Australia (and the systematic regimes of ‘truth’ about our country, its original inhabitants, and its waves of new settler-citizens) has remained so powerful over time.

Just Sustainability Transitions: Politics, Power, and Prefiguration in Transformative Change Toward Justice and Sustainability

Facing the world's ecological, economic, and social challenges requires us to connect the concepts of justice, sustainability, and transitions. Bridging and discussing heterogeneous fields, we argue that these concepts need to complement each other, and we present just sustainability transitions (JUSTRAs) to do so. To define JUSTRAs, we review the state-of-the-art literature, focusing on the understanding of these three concepts and their pairings in various disciplinary fields and empirical settings (e.g., environmental justice, just transitions, sustainability transitions, energy justice, food justice, urban justice). We center marginalized voices to highlight the processes of radical transformative change that JUSTRAs seek. We offer three analytical lenses that further the understanding of JUSTRAs: politics, power, and prefiguration. We argue that these complementary lenses are necessary to remake the world in both critical and pragmatic ways. Finally, we present a research agenda on JUSTRAs, foregrounding three complementary modes of inquiry: analyzing, critiquing, designing.

Lovely tents: a Jewish ecospiritual perspective on urban homeless encampments

ABSTRACT Engaging with Jewish texts through a lens of ecospiritual social work provides a framework to incorporate housing rights and homelessness into ecospirituality. This article deploys a Jewish Ecospirituality perspective to consider the issue of urban homeless encampments as a spiritual and environmental justice issue. This article incorporates biblical interpretation and ecospiritual perspectives to situate a Jewish understanding of ecospirituality. It draws connections between the diasporic history of the Jewish people and the displacement found in urban park encampments utilizing Jewish environmental ethics and ecospiritual social work theory to deconstruct the rightful use of public space in the context of urban citizenship.

Relocating occupation: A critical environmental justice analysis of the US military migration from Okinawa to Guåhan

The US military buildup across the Pacific is an ongoing colonial project reproducing oppressive power structures, human rights violations, and systemic environmental injustices. As the United States bolsters its Pacific presence, islands and peoples living on them are particularly vulnerable. However, not all places face overtly growing military-colonial occupations. Following decades of substantial military presence in Okinawa, 2024 marks the beginning of a precarious troop withdrawal from the Japanese prefecture. This significant reduction in Marine Corps personnel is the result of decades of political activism by Okinawans, who have continually resisted occupation and longstanding patterns of violence and oppression. Yet these military forces are not just leaving, they are relocating. The withdrawal coincides with 5,000 Marines and a new base coming to Guåhan (Guam), a territory where about 30% of land is under military control. This article examines these processes of military buildup and relocation through a critical environmental justice lens. We expand upon research on these issues by centering the critical environmental justice pillars concerning intersectionality, multiple scales, state power, and indispensability. We analyze the interconnections between Okinawa and Guåhan and argue that environmental justice scholarship must consider global geopolitics, interconnectivity, and sovereignty to adequately approach environmental movements in the Pacific region. In addition, we demonstrate that environmental justice victories in non-self-governing territories remain vulnerable to reversal and we advocate for inter-island coalition-building to avoid passing environmental harms from one island to another.

Can Mindful Politics Be Meaningful Politics? Socially Engaged Buddhism as a Political Project within a Liberal Political Order

Throughout the Western political world, and particularly in the United States, contemporary Buddhist political thought has largely become synonymous with the movement of mindful politics, also known as Socially Engaged Buddhism. Focusing primarily on issues of social, economic, and environmental justice, mindful politics has found a natural ally in Western left-wing and progressive movements to the degree that Buddhist political thought in the United States is now seemingly indistinguishable from these Western political positions as a practical matter. While the practical alliance of Socially Engaged Buddhism and progressivism is well established, what is less clear is what the movement of mindful politics brings to this relationship beyond its Buddhist veneer. By basing its political project on the secularization of Buddhist compassion (karuṇā), mindful politics fails in creating a political project which can be compelling to those outside of the confines of Buddhist religious belief and practice. While the mindful politics movement and contemporary liberal progressivism share an overlap in policy commitments, the religious roots of Buddhist mindful politics ultimately preclude it from properly aligning with the pluralistic requirements of the prevailing liberal political order. This article will examine the foundations of Socially Engaged Buddhism and explore the standing of the possibility of Socially Engaged Buddhism as the foundation for a political project within the confines of a liberal political order.

Learning From Community-Based Efforts Toward Shared Responsibility for Climate and Environmental Justice

In this exploratory inquiry, the research team investigates community-based data practices in climate and environmental justice initiatives. We set out to learn from the long history and current activities of communities seeking to hold corporate and government actors responsible to enact care for the climate and environment (e.g., monitoring air quality and waterways affected by petrochemical industries). Through a critical intersectional care ethics lens, we follow how groups respond to harms to ecosystems and seek healing, positioning their epistemic authority as they work with data (e.g., Ottinger, 2023; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017). This work draws insights from inquiries which have examined how communities engage with climate action and efforts toward environmental sustainability (e.g., dos Santos et al., 2024; Kaczmarek, 2023; Nathan, 2012). Through a poster reporting on preliminary research, we share early analyses highlighting communities’ labor of resisting corporate delay, denial, and other dis- and mal-information practices, which slow or block urgently needed action and truth-telling. Methods involve analysis of archival records created by and about communities affected by the Love Canal toxic waste crisis in Western New York. The project aims to appreciate differences and similarities in community-based data practices, identifying further possibilities for information professionals and libraries, archives, and museums to uphold these data practices and associated knowledge and memory work, research, and storytelling. In turn, the team proposes future work to trace the development of community-based practices with climate and environmental data over time.

Equitable stormwater utility fees: an integrated analysis of environmental, socioeconomic and infrastructure factors at the community scale

Abstract Municipalities worldwide implement stormwater management programs to mitigate the hydrological and water quality impacts of stormwater runoff. Stormwater utility fees (SWUF) are often used to fund such important programs by collecting revenue from residential and commercial properties. However, existing SWUFs often solely rely on the estimate of impervious surfaces and do not consider other environmental, infrastructure, and socioeconomic factors in the generation and effects of stormwater runoff. This study is the first attempt to propose a reconstruction of SWUFs from the perspectives of social equity and environmental justice. The method aims to address disparities in fee rates among residential parcels, focusing on helping economically disadvantaged communities. It integrates drainage service, potential contribution to non-point source pollution, and socioeconomic status through two alternative schemes. The two schemes allocate fees based on combined rankings of the three factors at the level of census block groups. The proposed method was applied to 88 180 residential parcels in Corpus Christi, Texas, a mid-sized coastal community. The results suggest that over 70% of the disadvantaged communities would benefit from the reconstructed SWUFs without affecting the targeted funding for stormwater infrastructure. This method builds on publicly available datasets and offers an adaptive framework for other municipalities to incorporate additional factors or datasets, representing an exploratory step toward achieving more equitable stormwater management practices.

Navigating Environmental Justice Framework: A Scoping Literature Review Over Four Decades

Navigating Environmental Justice Framework: A Scoping Literature Review Over Four Decades

Air quality and wheeze symptoms in a rural children's cohort near a drying saline lake

BackgroundIn California, climate change and competing water demands are intensifying the desiccation of the Salton Sea, a large land-locked “sea” situated near the southeastern rural US-Mexico border region known as the Imperial Valley. MethodsTo examine the possible effects of living near a saline lake on children's respiratory health, we analyzed the relationship between respiratory health symptoms and ambient PM concentrations among a predominantly Latino/Hispanic cohort of 722 school age children. Guardians completed a survey of their child's wheeze and respiratory health symptoms over the past 12 months, adapted from the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC). Exposure to dust storm hours (hourly concentrations >150 μg/m3 for PM10) was estimated using a network of regulatory monitors. ResultsBetween 2017 and 2019, children were exposed to 98 to 395 dust event hours annually. We observed disparate effects for dust events and wheeze among children living near the Salton Sea. Every additional 100 dust storm hours per year among children living near the Sea (<11 km) was associated with a 9.5 percentage point increase in wheeze (95% CI: 3.5, 15.4), a 4.6 percentage point increase in bronchitic symptoms (95% CI: 0.18, 10.2) and a 6.7 percentage point increase in sleep disturbance due to wheeze (95% CI: 0.96, 12.4). Similarly, increases in PM10 were also associated with greater reported wheeze and bronchitic symptoms among those living near the Sea, compared to children living ≥11 km from the Sea. There was no association of dust storms or PM10 with wheeze or bronchitic symptoms among the children residing farther from the Sea. ConclusionWe observed stronger adverse impacts of PM10 and dust events on respiratory health among those living closer to the drying Salton Sea, compared to children living farther away. In this community of predominantly low-income residents of color, these impacts raise environmental justice concerns about the effects of the drying Salton Sea on public health.

The Interplay of Poverty, Hardship, And Exploitation in Postcolonial Nigeria in Kaine Agary’s Yellow Yellow

This study analyzes Kaine Agary’s Yellow Yellow through the lens of postcolonial theory, examining the socio-economic, environmental, and gendered issues in postcolonial Nigeria, particularly in the Niger Delta. The novel reflects the region’s ongoing struggles with neocolonial exploitation, environmental degradation, and identity conflict, intensified by global capitalism and patriarchal structures. A gap exists in analyzing how these dynamics intertwine with postcolonial legacies in Nigerian literature. Using textual analysis, the study explores how Agary critiques these neocolonial forces, illustrating their devastating impact on both people and the environment. Key findings include the portrayal of economic exploitation, environmental degradation, and the marginalization of women, with Zilayefa, the protagonist, embodying the hybrid identity struggling for self-definition. The study recommends further exploration of gendered oppression within postcolonial frameworks and the development of policies to address resource control, environmental justice, and gender equality in postcolonial Nigeria.

Re-envisioning par for the course: an assessment of desert golf sustainability from a landscape perspective

ABSTRACT Despite providing valuable ecosystem services (benefits people derive from nature), desert golf courses consume enormous amounts of water and can exacerbate water scarcity in drylands. Yet, few studies have assessed the sustainability of desert golf from a landscape sustainability perspective, which centers on the linkages among landscape pattern, ecosystem services, and human well-being. Focusing on the Phoenix Metropolitan Area (PMA) of USA, a global golf epicenter, this study investigated the relationships among golf course spatial pattern, water use, ecosystem services, and environmental justice. Our analysis revealed that there are 210 golf courses in the PMA, together making up roughly 3.5% of total regional water demand. Furthermore, we found that people from high-income brackets have greater access to the benefits provided by golf courses than those in low-income brackets. To improve desert golf sustainability, we need to design courses that use less water and provide a wider range of ecosystem services beyond the game of golf, including climate regulating services and cultural services. Golf courses should be considered explicitly in sustainable landscape design, with particular emphasis on the diversity and accessibility of ecosystem services they provide in a regional context.

Multi-scale analysis of urban forests and socioeconomic patterns in a desert city, Phoenix, Arizona

Understanding the relationship between various socioeconomic factors and urban forest structure is essential for directing resources to ensure equitable distribution of green space. Through a case study of a desert city, i.e., Phoenix, AZ, this study provides a novel application of Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR) in which we explore the spatially variable relationships between a wide array of socioeconomic indicators and urban forest attributes. Through the computation of various scales of influence for different explanatory variables, MGWR enhances our analysis’s precision and stresses the association between socioeconomic status and urban forest structure at local and regional scales. Our results indicate that although there has been a pattern of green inequality where minority and low-income communities have less access to urban forests, education levels were mostly insignificant based on the MGWR results. In some instances, higher incomes are negatively correlated with tree canopy coverage. Additionally, the stem density model outperformed the canopy coverage model in terms of prediction accuracy. This research adds a new dimension to urban forestry literature and emphasizes the value of customized urban planning strategies and the environmental justice implications of urban forestry, particularly in arid environments.

The deterrent effect of environmental judicature on firms' pollution emissions: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

This paper investigates the deterrent effect of environmental judicature on firms' pollution emissions. Regarding the establishment of environmental courts (ECs) in China as a quasi-natural experiment, our staggered Difference-in-Differences (DID) estimation shows that strengthening environmental judicature has a negative, causal effect on firms' pollution emissions. The exogenous establishment of ECs decreases industrial firms' pollution emission intensity by approximately 7.8 %. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the negative effect of ECs on pollution emissions is particularly salient for firms in regions with weak environmental awareness, firms in industries with low competition, and firms with a high intensity of pollution emissions. Mechanism analysis indicates that the establishment of ECs enhances environmental justice and increases environmental violation costs, thereby having a deterrent effect on firms' pollution emissions. To comply with the more stringent environmental judicature, firms located in cities with ECs may temporarily cut their production, use more clean energy and buy more desulfurization equipment. In the long term, they may engage in more green and cooperative innovations, further substantiating the deterrent impact of stringent environmental judicature. Our findings can offer valuable insights for corporate green transformation and government pollution control.

Incitis-food: Food security and environmental justice in African city regions

Incitis-food: Food security and environmental justice in African city regions Dr Buchenrieder, Dr Benjamin from the University of the Bundeswehr Munich, and Dr Radišić and MS.c. Trivunić, from Foodscale Hub, introduce the INCiTiS-FOOD project for improved food and nutrition security in African urban and peri-urban areas. With 20% of the population, ca. 282 million individuals, undernourished in Africa, the continent is facing a food and nutrition crisis of unprecedented proportions. This crisis intensifies further considering climate change as well as the state (i.e. quantity and quality) of arable land, soil, and water resources. There is an urgent need to provide nutritious and healthy food for the continent’s growing population while also taking into account the rapid urbanisation rate of 45%. So the question remains – what can be done to improve FNS in Africa’s growing city regions while reducing the food-system-related environmental footprint?

A review on social work and climate change: the need for a transdisciplinary approach

ABSTRACT Climate change is a global emergency due to its social and economic impacts. This comprehensive review examines how climate change affects society and emphasises the role of social work in solving this problem with a multidisciplinary approach. Despite the least responsible, marginalised groups suffer hugely from climate change impacts and the global GDP will plummet, if no action is taken to mitigate its effects causing severe economic hardship for developing nations, and marginalised communities, which already face inequalities, resource shortages, and poor governance. There is a necessity for strategies to lower vulnerable population risks, thus emphasising the role of social work in addressing the inequalities of the climate change impacts. This paper discusses how social work concepts relate to environmental challenges and how they advocate for sustainability during climate change adaptation and mitigation, and promote environmental justice. Furthermore, the review also emphasises the need for transdisciplinary action on climate change. Scopus and Google Scholar databases was used to retrieve literature, based on the review questions, 51 literature items were selected for the evaluation and case examples. The review concludes that transdisciplinary action, including social workers’ role in decision-making and implementation, can create an equitable climate change mitigation plan.

Martin Thrupp and Environmental Justice

AbstractThis personal reflection explores the strong thread of justice which coursed through Martin Thrupp and found expression through his connection to the environment and his local community. I relate how this expression touched not only his activism and advocacy, but also his academic work.

Green spaces and flood vulnerability in urbanising regions: a case study in the Philadelphia metropolitan area

ABSTRACT Flooding continues to be one of the most significant natural hazards, disproportionately impacting vulnerable populations in urbanising regions. This study aims to examine the relationship between green space density and flood vulnerability in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area by integrating social and geophysical data. The research focuses on identifying areas where high flood vulnerability coincides with low green space availability, as these are critical regions for targeted intervention. Using social vulnerability indicators such as income, age, and housing characteristics, combined with geophysical factors like soil permeability and drainage density, the study assesses flood vulnerability across census block groups. Local Indicators of Spatial Association (LISA) and discriminant analysis were employed to detect spatial clusters with elevated flood risks and low green space density. Results reveal that these high-risk clusters are concentrated in densely urbanised areas such as Norristown, where lower-income and elderly populations are overrepresented. These findings reinforce broader environmental justice concerns, as socially vulnerable communities face compounded risks from both inadequate flood protection and limited access to green spaces. The study emphasises the need for integrated flood management, combining green infrastructure with structural interventions, to guide urban planners and policymakers in reducing flood risks and promoting environmental equity.

Storying Anthropocene Waters: Advocacy through Resacralization in Postcolonial River Narratives of the Indian Subcontinent

Against the background of contemporary debates about the Anthropocene and the attendant danger of global warming and climate change, which is causally linked to the unchecked exploitation of the earth by humans, narratives which embody an earth-centric scientia sacra become tools of advocacy for the ‘resacralization’ of the earth. This paper explores three South Asian river narratives that offer a blueprint for mindfully inhabiting the earth under the shadow of the Anthropocene. Calling for a participatory relationship with the holiness of water, they challenge the construction of water in a rapidly globalizing, uneven society shaped by a colonial hydrology in which the ecological relationship between land and water is out of balance. Drawing attention to the multiple ways in which the human and non-human world are enmeshed in the Anthropocene, these narratives engage with environmental justice concerns and challenge the hierarchy or perspectives and worldviews regarding accepted notions of subalternity. These texts construct a triptych suggesting an embedded ecotheology of the material and the spiritual, thereby sensitising the reader to the endangered waterscapes of the Anthropocene and also to the promise of the Symbiocene through an awareness of the fluid relational field that we share with the greater-than-human world.