Sociospatial Dimensions of Water Injustice: The Distribution of Surface Water Toxic Releases in California’s Bay-Delta

• In Event: 254 - Section on Environment and Technology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 14. Environmental Justice

Abstract

Previous water injustice research focuses predominantly on the inequities and power relations in water use, management, governance, and rights. This article charts a new research direction with a case study of the unequal distribution of surface water toxic releases in California’s Bay-Delta region. Secondary data, geographic information systems, and statistical techniques are used to examine the disparate health hazard of areal-weighted modeled hazard scores associated with surface water toxic releases at the census block group level for the year 2000. Spatial regression analyses confirm the hypothesis that black disadvantage is disproportionately associated with block group surface water hazard scores net of controls. The findings have scholarly implications for our understanding of race, class, and water-based environmental inequalities, as well as practical implications for targeted public health, land use, and environmental justice policy in the region.

Author

• Raoul Salvador Lievanos, Washington State University