Matt Benson

Urban GIS
Mennis
Lab 5

Introduction
This lab report concerns environmental justice in New Jersey. The following analyzes the
spatial pattern of air pollution facilities with regards to the distribution of socioeconomic
character and land use, specifically: Is there a spatial relationship between the distribution of air
polluting facilities and the following variables?:

a. Percent minority (defined here as either non-white race or Hispanic [according to the
Census Hispanics can be of any race]),
b. Population density (people/square km), and
c. Percent of land classified as “Developed High Intensity”.

Data and Methods

Facilities which released chemicals into the environment are listed in the Environmental
Protection Agency’s (EPA) publicly available Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) Database, and the
data for these facilities used here were downloaded from TOXMAP, a web application
developed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The raster land cover data used in this
report was obtained from the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) for 2011.
These datasets were overlaid onto a New Jersey Census Tracts shapefile, which contains
the socioeconomic data used in this report. A new shapefile was created from the land cover
data, isolating only developed, high intensity land. The TRI data showed facilities for the entire
United States, and was clipped using the NJ tracts shapefile as the clip feature, creating a new
shapefile showing facilities only in NJ. This layer was then reduced to display only facilities that
released chemicals in 2012. Both of these resulting shapefiles were joined to the tracts shapefile.
A raster spread (Euclidian distance) function was used to derive the mean distance of all
grid cells in each tract to facilities at a resolution of 200 feet. A raster point density function with
a radius of 2000 meters was used to derive the mean facility density in each tract. The outputs of
these functions were classified into two choropleth maps (see Figures 1 and 2) with 5 quantile
classifications. The following socio-economic and land cover values were summarized for each
quantile for each map (see Table 1): percent minority, percent developed high-intensity land, and
population density.

Results
 The socio-economic land cover values summarized by quantile reveal a distinct pattern,
seen in Table 1. Percent minority is highest closest to facilities and lowest furthest from
facilities, and lowest where facility density is lowest and highest where facility density is highest.
It may be useful for future analysis to include income, percent elderly, or other socioeconomic
variables in such a study. Percent developed high-intensity land and population density follow
suit exhibiting very a similar pattern.

Conclusion
The results of these analyses show that TRI facilities are located in areas that are the most
population dense, that have the most minorities, and that are likely urban, which may likely also
mean that there are high levels of poverty in these areas as well. It would seem that the
distribution of TRI facilities in New Jersey is a classic textbook case of environmental injustice.
The populations affected by these facilities are disproportionately high compared to the rest of
the state and they are also composed highly of minorities, populations that are historically most
often the victims of discrimination of all kinds. This report tells a story of New Jersey where its
toxic release facilities are most often located in probably poor, urban areas with high minority
populations that have few opportunities to move from these places and get away from the toxic
chemicals being released into their impoverished, population dense communities. The
distribution of TRI facilities in New Jersey, this report concludes, is probably a very clear case of
textbook environmental injustice and racism. Those that have the least ability to improve their
situation are hit hardest by environmental hardships, and the problem is made worse because of
environmental injustices like the situation revealed in this report.

Limitations
This report is composed solely of spatial analysis and contains no spatial statistical
analysis. Something like a Geographically Weighted Regression or Moran’s I statistic would
probably be useful in determining levels of statistical certainty about the results. However, the
results are probably clear enough to assert the conclusions that have been made.

Tables and Figures

Table 1
% % Developed High- Population Density (per
Minority Intensity Land square foot)

Distance

1 60% 15% 0.002

2 55% 7% 0.001

3 43% 3% 0.0007

4 32% 1% 0.0004

5 23% 0.09% 0.0002

Density

1 N/A 1.3% 0.00002

2 31% 0.08% 0.0002

3 36% 3% 0.0007

4 55% 8% 0.002

5 66% 20% 0.003

Figure 1
Figure 2