Papers and DocumentsA wide variety of papers and documents, peer-reviewed and otherwise, have been published over the years which provide important demonstations of and insights to the use of geospatial technologies. Some of the papers relate directly to the use of such technologies within human rights activities, and some represent potential future applications and enhancements.
Environmental justice: An analysis of superfund sites in Florida
In this study we investigate the spatial relationship between Superfund sites and the racial, ethnic, and economic characteristics of the areas surrounding those sites in the state of Florida. Unlike many previous environmental justice studies, we examine census tracts rather than larger aggregates such as counties or zip codes. We also look at the problem of environmental injustice longitudinally by analyzing Census data from 1970, 1980, and 1990. Such an analysis not only allows us to detect potential environmental inequality, but also to postulate on the nature and origins of this injustice. Overall, our findings indicate that Blacks and Hispanics (more)…
Environmental Justice: An Analysis of Superfund Sites in Florida
In this study we investigate the spatial relationship between Superfund sites and the racial, ethnic, and economic characteristics of the areas surrounding those sites in the state of Florida. Unlike many previous envi- ronmental justice studies, we examine census tracts rather than larger aggregates such as counties or zip codes. We also look at the problem of environmental injustice longitudinally by analyzing Census data from 1970, 1980, and 1990. Such an analysis not only allows us to detect potential environmental inequality, but also to postulate on the nature and origins of this injustice. Overall, ourfindings indicate that Blacks and Hispanics (more)…
Environmental Justice and Southern California?s “Riskscape”
Past research on “environmental justice” has often failed to systematically link hazard proximity with quantifiable health risks. The authors employ recent advances in air emissions inventories and modeling techniques to consider a broad range of outdoor air toxics in Southern California and to calculate the potential lifetime cancer risks associated with these pollutants. They find that such risks are attributable mostly to transportation and small-area sources and not the usually targeted large-facility pollution emissions. Multivariate regression suggests that race plays an explanatory role in risk distribution even after controlling for other economic, land-use, and population factors. This pattern suggests the (more)…
Environmental justice and sulphur dioxide atmospheric pollution in Madrid: a spatio-temporal analysis and assessment with GIS
Last years there is a growing awareness about the fact that pollutant emissions produced by human activities, when spreading across space, do not fairly affect to different social categories. It has been often observed that most disadvantaged groups suffer more severely these negative externalities, so generating environmental injustice. This paper tackles the diagnosis of the extent the negative externalities, derived from sulphur dioxide atmospheric pollution, unequally affect to the zones populated by the distinct income groups in Madrid, in order to check the environmental equity / unequity they could cause in two years, 1995 and 2005. To this end two (more)…
Environmental racial inequality in Detroit
This study uses industrial pollution data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and tract-level demographic data from the 2000 U.S. census to determine whether environmental racial inequality existed in the Detroit metropolitan area in the year 2000. This study differs from prior environmental inequality research in two important ways. First, it offers a positive rationale for using hazard proximity indicators. Second, it uses a distance decay modeling technique to estimate hazard proximity. This technique weights each hazard’s estimated negative effect by distance such that the estimated negative effect declines continuously as distance from the hazard increases, thus (more)…
Evidence of Destruction in the Democratic Republic of Congo Case Study Report
In response to reports of widespread violence targeting civilians in the area of Busurungi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in May of 2009, Human Rights Watch requested satellite imagery analysis of the area to support the efforts of the Congo Advocacy Coalition to increase civilian protection in the area. Due to the remoteness of the Busurungi area and security threats, visual documentation of atrocities is difficult to obtain, and extensive cloud cover in that region hinders satellite image acquisition. Over a period of several months, AAAS acquired and analyzed 100 square kilometers of cloud free satellite imagery, locating 1,494 destroyed (more)…
Eye in the Sky: Monitoring Human Rights Abuses Using Geospatial Technology
Human rights and humanitarian relief organizations have started to use geospatial technologies with the long-term potential for supporting human rights advocacy around the world.
Geographical barriers to employment for American-born and immigrant workers
Residential segregation interacts with the changing geography of transport and employment in urban areas to restrict access to workplaces. A growing literature suggests that spatial barriers limit the job opportunities of minority women and men in American cities. This study examines the nature and extent of geographical barriers for minority immigrants by analysing their commuting behaviour. Information from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Sample is used to compare the commuting times of immigrant and native-born minority women in central parts of the New York Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area. The effects of occupation, wages, family responsibilities, trnsport mode, year of arrival (more)…
Geographical differences in cancer incidence in the Amazon basin of Ecuador in relation to residence near oil fields
Background: Since 1972, oil companies have extracted more than 2 billion barrels of crude oil from the Ecuadorian Amazon, releasing billions of gallons of untreated wastes and oil directly into the environment. This study aimed to determine if there was any difference in overall and specific cancer incidence rates between populations living in proximity to oil fields and those who live in areas free from oil exploitation. Methods: Cancer cases from the provinces of Sucumbios, Orellana, Napo and Pastaza during the period 1985?1998 were included in the study. The exposed population was defined as those living in a (more)…
Geographic variation in mortgage discrimination: Evidence from Los Angeles
This paper addresses the question of racial and ethnic discrimination and geographic redlining in Los Angeles County mortgage markets using 1990 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data on mortgage applications and U.S. Census Bureau Summary Tape Files for tract-level sociodemographic and housing data. Logit models of the probabilty that a mortgage application will be approved show across-the board discrimination against Black applicants but not against Hispanic applicants. Applicants in both Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, however, are systematically denied loans, even when controlling for neighborhood socioeconomic differences. Finally, the joint contingency of applicant race/ethnicity and neighborhood race/ethnic context plays a significant role (more)…
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