*WINNER* A Method for Mapping Environmental Justice Factors by Watershed

Abstract

Environmental justice (EJ) is defined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income concerning the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies. Since the rise in awareness of EJ issues in recent years, our government has declared it essential to identify and address infrastructure problems of communities with EJ concerns. While the EPA has created an Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool (EJSCREEN) to aid in identifying those communities, it contains limited EJ indicators and can only assess how communities are affected at the census tract level. This project aims to map watersheds and quantify their relative EJ factors alongside environmental factors to understand better their influence on communities. Using ArcGIS, our goal is to develop a spatial and statistical methodology for use as an environmental justice tool for watersheds in Tennessee. The findings from this study can provide state and federal governments with a tool to understand how EJ and environmental factors interact within their communities and watersheds.