Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Assessing The Health Effects Of Climate Change, Social Vulnerability, And Environmental Justice In Camden County, New Jersey, Daniil Ivanov

Theses

Climate change negatively impacts health, while socially vulnerable and overburdened communities disproportionately experience climate change and negative health determinants. Camden County is used as a case study for analyzing environment, socioeconomics, and health. Environmental variables—PM2.5 and land cover of impervious surfaces, floodplains, and forests—were compared to the CDC Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) at the census tract level, finding significant correlations between land cover, air quality, and the SVI. The overburdened communities defined by the NJ Environmental Justice Law experienced a significantly higher incidence of emergency department visitation for respiratory, circulatory, and mental illnesses than non-overburdened communities. Health outcomes were compared …

The Relationship Between Urban Heat Islands And Redline Districts, Emily Cornwell

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

As climate change worsens and the world attempts to find solutions to global changes, it is important to identify how climate change will affect individual communities. Climate resilience tactics aim to protect vulnerable populations against environmental harms, such as excess heat. Historically, communities of color face forms of environmental racism. One example of structural racism includes the loans given out by the Home Owners Loan Corporation during the 1940s which “redlined” certain communities of color by refusing to give these neighborhoods loans and rated these areas undesirable for loaners. Urban heat islands occur in residential, densely populated areas with lots …

Voices Of The Often Unheard: The Environmental Impacts Of Catastrophic Wildfire Events On Individuals With Developmental Disabilities, Mary Madison Mckenzie

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The Thomas Fire for a time was the largest wildfire in California history, burning 281,893 acres and destroying 1,063 structures. Within three years, the August Complex Fire, at 1,032,649 acres, almost quadrupled that record. Climate related disasters such as these have impelled social science researchers to heed calls for a paradigm shift in understanding the risks climate change poses to the social world, in particular, disaster risks for vulnerable groups. Existing research tends to focus on disasters such as hurricanes, featuring risks for vulnerable populations by race, class, and/or individuals with disabilities in general, but not for individuals with developmental …

"Not In My Town": A Community's Response To Water And Soil Pollution, Karolina Staros

Dissertations

At the core of this dissertation is the acknowledgment that social movements are complex networks of people who face many obstacles in their efforts to achieve social change. One critique of social movements is that their goals and mission are limited to short term ideas and not long-term, systemic transformation. The lack of long term, systemic change can be observed when social movement groups mobilize for the same cause over and over again with what appears to be little progress over a period of time. The exact blueprint for a social movement’s success does not exist, but it is posited …

Examining The Intersection Of Environmental Justice, Chronic Disease, And Pandemics; How A Mobile Health App Could Improve Health Outcomes And Inform Policy, Jessica Snow

Master's Projects and Capstones

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the intersection of environmental justice, chronic disease and illness, and pandemics. The inequitable distribution of polluting factories, landfills, and hazardous waste sites have been a long-standing concern in the field of environmental justice. Local zoning codes and land use policies have been tools for segregating people and concentrating pollution in low-income communities and communities of color. Many studies have found that pollution varies among racial and minority groups, and the burden of pollution is not one that is evenly shared. Communities of color and low income communities are disproportionately affected by air …

An Ethnography Of Wash Infrastructures And Governance In Sulphur Springs, Florida, Mathews Jackon Wakhungu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes the forces that shape the perceptions and practices in Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WaSH) services in the community of Sulphur Springs, Tampa, Florida. It also explores how these forces, perceptions, and practices produce adverse experiences and inequalities in water, sewer, drainage, and laundry services. This ethnographic study combines participant observation, ethnographic interviewing, freelisting, oral history, and GIS to uncover the context, experiences, and perceptions about WaSH in Sulphur Springs. The study finds that the present conditions and perceptions about WaSH are embedded into the historical contexts—especially racial segregation, the construction of the interstate, and multiple economic downturns …

Using Historical Maps For Contaminated Site Identification And Prediction, And Environmental Justice Implications: A Case Study In Grand Rapids, Michigan, Dana Heusinkveld

Masters Theses

As the production of synthetic chemicals has grown in the past centuries to increase production, lower costs, and generally make our lives more convenient, detecting and understanding the environmental impacts of these compounds has lagged significantly behind their mass production and wide-spread use. To combat this trend, sources of these contaminants, especially those that have been removed from the landscape, need to be quickly identified to make mitigation and remediation efforts more effective. In this study, historical Sanborn maps are used to extract and digitize historical site/land use in Grand Rapids during the early 1900s through the practical application of …

A Comparison Of Tribal Sovereignty, Self-Determination, And Environmental Justice At The Epa’S Onondaga Lake And Tar Creek Superfund Sites, Thomas Clark

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program mandates that Native American tribes are afforded the same treatment as states in the implementation of environmental remediation projects; however, the degree of coordination and consultation between the EPA and sovereign tribal governments varies widely between sites. Two of the Superfund program’s highest profile sites with Native American interest, northeast Oklahoma’s Tar Creek and central New York’s Onondaga Lake, are characterized by such a disparity in tribal participation. While Oklahoma’s Quapaw Tribe would ultimately enter into a number of cooperative agreements with the EPA for direct control over remedial projects, New York’s Onondaga Nation …

Fields Brook Superfund Site: Race, Class, And Environmental Justice In A Blasted Landscape, Richard C. Bargielski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1980, the United States Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). This federal law provided the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the legal tools necessary to pursue polluters who had improperly stored or disposed hazardous wastes. Since its passage, more than a thousand sites have been added to the National Priorities List (NPL), but only a fraction have been cleaned up. Proponents of neoliberalism argue that aggressive environmental policies such as CERCLA harm workers by making it impossible for businesses to operate profitably. This coincides with a drop of nearly 50% in the U.S. …

Living Rivers, Cosmopolitan Activism, And Environmental Justice In The Bengal Delta, Daniel Adel

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This thesis explores the social movements and civil society activism to protect the rivers that flow through Bangladesh—the cradle and terminal delta floodplain of the transboundary Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna river systems—, as well as ways to build regional cooperation and watershed democracy in South Asia. The research drew on four overarching fields of study: environmental justice, southern environmentalism, ecological nationalism, and environmental governance. These four bodies of scholarship helped address the overarching question: how are civil society organizations analyzing and responding to the water diversions and degradation of Bangladesh’s transboundary rivers? Semi-structured interviews were conducted with civil society organizations …

Environmental Injustice And Racial/Ethnic Heterogeneity In Houston, Texas, Michel G. Loustaunau Garcia

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis seeks to contribute to distributive environmental justice (EJ) research by analyzing racial/ethnic and intra-ethnic disparities in potential health risks from exposure to hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) in Harris County, the most populous county in Texas. Previous EJ research in this urban area has not examined intra-ethnic heterogeneity in exposure to air pollutants or attempted to compare social disparities in exposure to air pollution caused by vehicular (mobile) and point (stationary) sources. The goal of this study is to determine how the EJ implications of cancer risks from inhalation exposure to HAPs from mobile and stationary sources differ across …

Watered Down: The Challenges Of Managing Water Resources In Montana, Beau E. Baker

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Like much of the American West, Montana sits in the cross hairs of climate change. State drought resiliency projects and cooperative watershed management are on the rise in the face of decreased snowpack, early runoff, precipitation variability and lower seasonal stream flows. Population growth, land use practices, recreation and tourism all contribute to pressures on state water supplies.

Montana is faced with the arrival of invasive species that threaten the ecological health of its lakes, rivers and streams. State budget constraints and depressed agency capacity are hurting our ability to fend off these threats. There’s a lack of public education …

A Landscape Of Thermal Inequity: Social Vulnerability To Urban Heat In U.S. Cities, Bruce Coffyn Mitchell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A combination of the urban heat island effect and a rising temperature baseline resulting from global climate change inequitably impacts socially vulnerable populations residing in urban areas. This dissertation examines distributional inequity of exposure to urban heat by socially disadvantaged groups and minorities in the context of climate justice. Using Cutter’s hazards-of-place model, variables indicative of social vulnerability and biophysical vulnerability are statistically tested for their associations. Biophysical vulnerability is conceptualized utilizing a urban heat risk index calculated from summer 2010 LANDSAT imagery to measure land surface temperature , structural density through the normalized difference built-up index, and vegetation abundance …

An Evaluation Of Noise Reduction Strategies At Large Commercial Airports In The United States: A Policy Analysis And Framework Classification, Tyler Spence

Open Access Dissertations

Noise pollution from aircraft, specifically in the vicinity of airports as aircraft takeoff and land, is a problem that has been shown to have negative impacts on the welfare of humans, animals, and the surrounding environment. The problem may only become worse as air travel increases for cargo and passenger operations, populations increase, and the overall number of aircraft increase. Currently, guidance has been issued from the International Civil Aviation Organization on how to combat the issue of noise pollution through policy, both at that national regulatory level, and at the local airport level. This study evaluated the local airport …

Brooklyn Trash Problems, Christina Diaz

Capstones

Walk through the streets of New York and at some point you’ll inevitably pass by a wafting smell of garbage, but residents of North Brooklyn are handling more than their share of the smelly load and they’re tired of getting dumped on.

A newly formed coalition of neighbors and environmental activists has begun a turf war against Brooklyn Transfer LLC, a waste transfer station located on Thames Street in East Williamsburg, which handles private commercial waste through ­­­­­­­­­­­­­Five Star Carting.

Link to Map: https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=1769408

County Demographic Influence On Toxic Chemical Activities Of Chemical-Related Industry In Michigan, Lisa Helen Perricane

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There are a large number of chemical facilities that emit toxic chemicals in Michigan, and there is a concern regarding toxic chemical exposure to the residents of Michigan counties. However, it is uncertain whether chemical companies that emit toxic chemicals in Michigan are influenced by county demographic factors in deciding whether to engage in voluntary pollution prevention (P2) activities and whether this decision influences U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (U.S. EPA) Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) scores. Using Bullard's theory of environmental justice, the purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if there was a correlation between chemical-related industry's voluntary P2 …

The Impacts Of Health Status And Exposure To Environmental Toxins On Children's Grade Point Average In El Paso, Texas, Stephanie Elizabeth Clark

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Studies in the US have found that both exposure to environmental toxins and children's general health status negatively impact children's academic achievement. This Thesis will be made of up two papers. The first examines the impact of exposure to residential air toxins from a variety of sources on student's academic achievement and the second paper incorporates a measure of children's general health status into the statistical model from the first paper. This Thesis employs National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) risk estimates from a variety of sources and individual-level data collected through a mail survey of fourth and fifth grade school …

Hispanic Communities And Environmental Justice: A Comparative Study Of Mobility And Exposure To Air Toxics In Houston, Maricarmen Hernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Environmental justice research has focused too little attention on immigrant communities. This study extends from the premise that themes of immigration and mobility among racial/ethnic minority communities must be more carefully analyzed by environmental justice (EJ) scholars. By clarifying why Hispanic people live where they live, and what factors shape their exposures to cancer risks from hazardous air pollutants, this study aims to contribute to the existing EJ body of knowledge. The analysis employs qualitative methods, implemented as part of a larger National Science Foundation-funded study. In-depth semi-structured phone interviews were conducted with randomly selected Hispanic individuals, some of whom …

Environmental Justice In Kentucky: A County-Level Study Of Enforcement Of The Clean Air Act, Katherine Meade

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Not available.