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In response to COVID-19 pandemic supply chain issues, the State of California issued Executive Order (EO) N-19-21 to use state land to increase warehousing capacity. This highlights a land-use paradox between economic and environmental goals: adding warehouse capacity increases climate pollution and traffic congestion around the ports and warehouses, while there is a deficit of affordable housing and high homeless rates in port-adjacent underserved communities. This study aims to inform regional policymakers and community stakeholders about these trade-offs by identifying current and future supply of anddemand for warehousing and housing in Southern California through 2040. The study uses statistical analysis and forecasting, and evaluates across numerous scenarios the environmental impact of meeting demand for both with the Community LINE Source Model. Warehousing and housing are currently projected to be in high demand across Southern California in future decades, despite short-run adjustments in the post-pandemic period of inflation and net declines in population. Using state land for warehousing creates environmental justice concerns, as the number of air pollution hotspots increases even with electrifyingtrucking fleets, especially when compared against low-impact affordable housing developments. However, low-income housing demand appears to be positively correlated with unemployment, suggesting that the jobs provided by warehousing development might help to ameliorate that concern.

California must operate and maintain an effective and efficient transportation infrastructure while ensuring that the health of communities and the planet are not compromised. By assessing transportation projects using a life-cycle perspective, all relevant emission sources and activities from the construction, operation, maintenance, and end-of-life phases can be analyzed and mitigated. This report presents a framework to assess the life-cycle human health and climate change impacts from six types of transportation projects: (1) Roadways; (2) Marine ports; (3) Logistical distribution centers; (4) Railyards; (5) Bridges and overpasses; and (6) Airports. The framework was applied using an integrated model to assess fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, noise impacts, and monetized damages (Value of Statistical Life, Social Cost of Carbon) from two case studies: routine resurfacing and vehicle operations on road segments within the San Francisco Bay Area using 2019 data, and annual marine, cargo, rail, trucking, and infrastructure maintenance operations at the Port of Oakland in 2020. The results suggest that emission sources in a project’s supply chain and construction (material production and deliveries, construction activities, fuel refining) can significantly contribute to the full scope of impacts from transportation systems. Equitable mitigation policies (e.g., electrification, pollution control technologies) need to be tailored to address the sources that impact communities the most.

Childhood lead exposure through drinking water has long-term effects on cognition and development, and is a significant public health concern. The comprehensive lead testing of public schools entails high expense and time. In prior work, random forest modeling was used successfully to predict the likelihood of lead contamination in the drinking water from schools in the states of California and Massachusetts. In those studies, data from 70% of the schools was used to predict the probability of unsafe water lead levels (WLLs) in the remaining 30%. This study explores how the model predictions degrade, as the training dataset forms a progressively smaller proportion of schools. The size of the training set was varied from 80% to 10% of the total samples in four US states: California, Massachusetts, New York, and New Hampshire. The models were evaluated using the precision-recall area under curve (PR AUC) and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC AUC). While some states required as few as 10% of the schools to be included in the training set for an acceptable ROC AUC, all four states performed within an acceptable ROC AUC range when at least 50% of the schools were included. The results in New York and New Hampshire were consistent with the prior work that found the most significant predictor in the modeling to be the Euclidean distance to the closest school in the training set demonstrating unsafe WLLs. This study further supports the efficacy of predictive modeling in identifying the schools at a high risk of lead contamination in their drinking water supply, even when the survey data is incomplete on WLLs in all schools.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The volume of public health environmental justice (EJ) research produced by academic institutions increased through 2022. However, the methods used for evaluating EJ in exposure science and epidemiologic studies have not been catalogued. Here, we completed a scoping review of EJ studies published in 19 environmental science and epidemiologic journals from 2018 to 2021 to summarize research types, frameworks, and methods. RECENT FINDINGS: We identified 402 articles that included populations with health disparities as a part of EJ research question and met other inclusion criteria. Most studies (60%) evaluated EJ questions related to socioeconomic status (SES) or race/ethnicity. EJ studies took place in 69 countries, led by the US (n = 246 [61%]). Only 50% of studies explicitly described a theoretical EJ framework in the background, methods, or discussion and just 10% explicitly stated a framework in all three sections. Among exposure studies, the most common area-level exposure was air pollution (40%), whereas chemicals predominated personal exposure studies (35%). Overall, the most common method used for exposure-only EJ analyses was main effect regression modeling (50%); for epidemiologic studies the most common method was effect modification (58%), where an analysis evaluated a health disparity variable as an effect modifier. Based on the results of this scoping review, current methods in public health EJ studies could be bolstered by integrating expertise from other fields (e.g., sociology), conducting community-based participatory research and intervention studies, and using more rigorous, theory-based, and solution-oriented statistical research methods.

In the United States, citizens and policymakers heavily rely upon Environmental Protection Agency mandated regulatory networks to monitor air pollution; increasingly they also depend on low-cost sensor networks to supplement spatial gaps in regulatory monitor networks coverage. Although these regulatory and low-cost networks in tandem provide enhanced spatiotemporal coverage in urban areas, low-cost sensors are located often in higher income, predominantly White areas. Such disparity in coverage may exacerbate existing inequalities and impact the ability of different communities to respond to the threat of air pollution. Here we present a study using cost-constrained multiresolution dynamic mode decomposition (mrDMDcc) to identify the optimal and equitable placement of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) sensors in four U.S. cities with histories of racial or income segregation: St. Louis, Houston, Boston, and Buffalo. This novel approach incorporates the variation of PM2.5 on timescales ranging from 1 day to over a decade to capture air pollution variability. We also introduce a cost function into the sensor placement optimization that represents the balance between our objectives of capturing PM2.5 extremes and increasing pollution monitoring in low-income and nonwhite areas. We find that the mrDMDcc algorithm places a greater number of sensors in historically low-income and nonwhite neighborhoods with known environmental pollution problems compared to networks using PM2.5 information alone. Our work provides a roadmap for the creation of equitable sensor networks in U.S. cities and offers a guide for democratizing air pollution data through increasing spatial coverage of low-cost sensors in less privileged communities.

The conflict and discord between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B DuBois regarding their premise and approach to racial uplift for Black Americans have been very well documented. While Washington sought equality with accommodation, DuBois functioned through agitation. However, their biophilic accord and unity within the natural environment have been both underrecognized and underappreciated. As an honor to these esteemed racial and social justice giants, this special issue article reveals the universality of their environmental justice ideologies while also celebrating the beauty, power and foresight of their ecological language in script and speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the impact of food (inter)activism in the Marquesas, French Polynesia, on planetary health, justice, and cultural sovereignty. It discusses how Western interventions have disrupted traditional foodways and Indigenous systems of planetary health, leading to health and environmental challenges. The Marquesans are adapting to global health advocacy while preserving their cultural traditions through revitalizing traditional foodways and engaging in food (inter)activism. The article highlights the complex interplay between cultural identity, health, and environmental justice in the Marquesas, emphasizing the importance of local approaches to global health and environmental initiatives. [Extracted from the article]

The rule of law has been found central in promoting environmental sustainability. While existing literature has examined certain aspects of the rule of law and environmental sustainability in analyzing their association, there remains a gap in our understanding of the intricate linkages between these two concepts. Specifically, there is a lack of a holistic approach to exploring the relationship between the rule of law and environmental sustainability. To address this gap, this study aims to conduct a thorough examination of the relationship between the rule of law and environmental sustainability. Our study, based on the rule of law index (ROLI) and the environmental performance index (EPI), reveals that environmental performance is closely associated with the rule of law. Environmental performance is particularly related to certain dimensions of the rule of law, such as 'constraints on government powers', 'open government', 'fundamental rights', and 'criminal justice'. However, it should be noted that regional variations exist. For instance, the ROLI and the EPI are not clearly associated in the least-developed countries. Overall, results show that the rule of law plays an important role in enhancing environmental performance across developing and developed countries. Our study suggests considering the importance of community engagement and an effective, impartial, and independent justice system to improve environmental performance. Key policy highlights: The rule of law is fundamental in promoting and ensuring environmental sustainability. We examine the relationship between indicators of the rule of law and environmental sustainability. We use data from the Rule of Law Index (ROLI) and Environmental Performance Index (EPI). We provide a global analysis and elaborate on regional variations. We discuss mediating factors that may influence the nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Place and the intergenerational transmission of cultural knowledge are deeply intertwined among Indigenous groups due to the significance of the environment and land within Indigenous ideologies, and the legacies of displacement wrought by settler colonialism. Little research explores this topic among Indigenous tribes in the Gulf South, who face unique environmental challenges related to climate change, land loss, oil extraction, and who depend on the coastal environment for cultural and subsistence resources. Scholarship on this topic among tribes that are not federally recognized is similarly limited. Using semi-structured interviews among 31 self-identified women members of a U.S. Gulf South tribe, we show how gendered and place-based knowledges manifest within the embodied and material experiences of tribal members, as well as the ways that those experiences and the transmission of knowledge are mediated by political and environmental changes through the example of traditional health and healing practices and knowledges. Key findings that emerged include: (a) Place-Based Concerns about Environmental Change and Displacement; (b) Concerns about Future Generational Changes in Knowledge Transmission; (c) Loss of Indigenous Health Knowledge. We suggest that there are significant impediments to the sociocultural reproduction of traditional health and healing practices and knowledges within the tribe brought about by environmental changes (e.g. saltwater intrusion, land loss, etc.) and the continuing influx of Western medicinal knowledge and practices. In contextualizing these findings within the environmental reproductive justice framework, we echo extant intersectional environmental research suggesting that environmental degradation and legacies of settler colonialism, by virtue of place-based and gendered knowledges and labor, disproportionately burden women, especially Indigenous women. We also note that despite significant material and cultural threats, tribal members demonstrate resilience and resistance to the macro-scale forces obstructing Indigenous ways of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization has led to escalating challenges in stormwater management, impacting the sustainability and resilience of urban communities worldwide. The increase in impervious surfaces and pollutants in stormwater runoff necessitates sustainable solutions. Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) has emerged as an environmentally friendly approach to control runoff quantity and improve quality by emulating natural processes. However, current GSI planning lacks a comprehensive framework, especially in considering environmental justice (EJ). In light of this challenge, our study presents an open-source GSI siting tool, iPlan-GreenS2, to identify suitable GSI locations by integrating geological, environmental, and sociodemographic factors at the state level. In doing so, we identified suitable sites for 11 different GSIs in Florida based on various environmental criteria such as land use, slope, imperviousness, hydrological soil type, and groundwater elevation. Furthermore, the developed tool is designed to prioritize locations where GSIs can promote EJ by incorporating a social vulnerability index (SVI). SVI was developed based on eight environmental justice metrics including demographic data (% African American; % Indigenous People; % Asian; % Hispanic) along with socioeconomic indicators (% persons without high school diploma; % unemployed; median household income; and % in poverty). Our analysis revealed that Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and Hillsborough County have the highest number of socially vulnerable census tracts, while also having the most modeled suitable locations for GSIs, highlighting not only the feasibility but also the significant potential for widespread GSI implementation to improve existing social vulnerabilities while controlling stormwater runoff and improving runoff quality. iPlan-GreenS2 is a user-friendly and open-access tool with several key features that allows users to filter suitable GSI locations based on various factors such as the GSI type, social vulnerability status, county jurisdictional area, or land ownership. The framework of the tool proposed in this study is adaptable and can be easily applied to both smaller and larger geographical scales. iPlan-GreenS2 serves as a valuable decision-making tool for urban planners and state officials, facilitating the identification of sustainable and equitable stormwater management solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recreational spaces like parks and playgrounds play a vital role in community development. They serve as avenues for important experiences like physical activity, social interaction, and shared cultural expressions. However, BPoC (Black Person, and Person of Color) communities face disparate unjust environmental barriers to utilizing such spaces. Yet not much is known about how BPoC professionals in dedicated professional associations, could address such barriers through the pursuit of environmental justice when planning and designing recreational spaces. This study aims to address this lacuna in research. Findings from in-depth interviews demonstrate that in the design and planning of spaces for recreation, BPoC design professionals drew on their lived experiences from community history and personal encounters to: (1) foster opportunities for participation in design and planning processes (procedural justice), (2) address location-related concerns pertaining to systemic strains in resource allocation (distributive justice), and (3) integrate features that support socio-cultural relationships (interactional justice). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban roads are known to affect wildlife fauna but most assessments of the impacts of roads have been done in cities of the developed world with comparable studies still lacking from sprawling cities of the developing countries. This gap precludes the ability of the city management authorities in designing the appropriate mitigation and conservation measures especially during this era where the road networks in African cities is expanding steadily. We surveyed 48 km of roads transcending an urban-rural gradient in Morogoro city, Tanzania to understand the patterns of road kills, taxonomic composition and used the Generalized linear modeling to determine the ecological and environmental factors mostly influencing the road kill abundances. We also assessed the conservation status of the road kills to propose measures to improve biodiversity conservation in this urban landscape bordering a global biodiversity hotspot. We found 929 killed animals belonging to 62 families and 23 orders and 5 taxa (classes) with the majority kills being insects. There was a significant difference on road kill abundance between taxa but no significant difference in kill abundance across the urban-rural gradient. Furthermore, we found that designated road speed limit was significantly positively associated with increased road kills with the insect taxon occurring most abundant in the kill. Additionally, we found three species involved in the animal-vehicle collision threatened with extinction and over 50% of the recorded road kills lacking information on their conservation status on the red list at all. These data may be useful in improving the strategies to reducing the animal-vehicle collisions and to inform the potential biodiversity monitoring in the study area and elsewhere in Africa's cities faced with similar urbanization challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most living shoreline site selection and design decision support tools are based upon existing environmental conditions. We developed a web-based, geospatial tool called Future Shorelines that integrates high-resolution landscape elevation data and a matrix of locally derived NOAA Interagency Sea Level Rise Scenarios to characterize future conditions of submergence and shoreline translation induced by sea level rise. Once the practitioner selects a location of interest, sea level rise scenario (e.g., high), and target year (e.g., 2050), the tool will generate plan view and cross-sectional informational graphics specific to their choices. This information can then be paired with other menu options, like parcel ownership, to facilitate the planning and construction of nature-based shoreline stabilization solutions that (1) are located where opportunities for horizontal migration are optimized, (2) remain accessible for monitoring and maintenance, and (3) perform as intended over the design life of the installation. The tool's menu options and the user interface were informed by project partner input solicited during numerous workshops convened over the duration of the 2-year project. This coproduction created a product that was familiar to the end user and therefore increased the likelihood that it would be utilized by them during the planning and design of living shoreline projects. Although developed for use in the Indian River Lagoon, located along the east-central Florida coast, it can be seamlessly replicated for application in other coastal regions of the USA where the requisite data are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racist public policies in the US, like redlining, segregated many communities of color to resource poor and impoverished areas, and codified how resources were distributed to communities based on race. Redlining, a historic discriminatory housing policy used to value city neighborhoods by race has codified segregation in cities today. Research has shown how the practice of redlining has shaped the economic and social fabric of modern U.S. cities, but only recently have researchers explored how these discriminatory policies have influenced the ecology in cities. Here, we used camera trap data collected in the Washington, D.C. region to assess if historic redlining impacts medium-sized mammal diversity in present day. We found no significant difference in species richness or community composition among historic neighborhood classifications. We did find that urbanization alone had a significant negative correlation with the persistence of raccoon and occupancy of Virginia opossum, but these variables did not vary significantly between housing classifications for any species. Our study adds to a growing body of knowledge on how historic land use decisions affect biodiversity in cities, allowing managers to better understand where conservation and habitat improvements should be made to reduce nature inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban areas with low tree cover in Brazil are found mainly in the Amazon, highlighting the disparities in access to benefits of urban greening. The goal of this study was to analyze how urban afforestation is associated with sociodemographic factors to understand the distribution of trees (and their benefits) among different social segments in the city of Macapá, in the extreme Northeastern Amazon. We conducted a floristic inventory in 217 blocks belonging to 32 neighborhoods, and classified species according to origin (exotic or native) and fruit use (fruit-bearing or non-fruit-bearing). Additionally, we selected 12 variables to represent sociodemographic gradients among neighborhoods. We reduced the dimensionality of floristic and sociodemographic data using ordination techniques, and used their first axes to represent gradients of species composition and sociodemographic factors. The effect of sociodemographic gradients on tree abundance, species richness and composition was tested using generalized linear models. The results indicate that most urban trees are exotic, non-fruit-bearing, and of medium size (10–30 cm in diameter). Older neighborhoods with higher human population age and income showed higher tree abundance and higher species richness. The species composition was related to the gradient of human population density, proportion of old people, income, and household occupancy. Large non-fruit trees were more frequent in neighborhoods with low population density. Exotic trees were more frequent in older neighborhoods with older people and high income, and large fruit trees showed higher abundance in neighborhoods with low household occupancy rates. Ensuring that low-income neighborhoods and historically marginalized communities have equal access to green spaces and adequate tree coverage is a key element to promote environmental justice and to develop healthier and more sustainable cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The region of Nigeria that produces oil is experiencing a surge in community-based vigilante violence, potentially escalating conflict dynamics and increasing fear of injury. The reason it matters is that neighborhood vigilante groups are more likely to participate in criminal, political, and ethnic plotting and are not always controllable. This prompted us to look into whether GMoU cluster interventions by MOCs could lower the heat map of fatalities from vigilante insurgency in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. The results of logit regression and propensity score matching demonstrate that the MOCs' limited CSR efforts to protect the area have been successful in creating, formalizing, equipping, and managing vigilante groups. The results also show that the CSR initiatives have reduced vigilante violence within and between host communities, as well as violence against their residents. This implies that raising awareness of CSR with the goal of strengthening vigilante control will strengthen the local security apparatus, discourage resurgence in the various rural areas, safeguard the workers and equipment of oil firms, and provide a favorable business environment in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological environmental protection is an important support for China to achieve ecological civilization, but it often encounters challenges in fairly distributing protection responsibilities and development rights between the wider society and local communities living in protected areas. Ecological protection planning is an instrument for reconstructing environmental protection responsibilities and development rights among different social groups: the communities within the protected areas bear the responsibility for ecological protection but may lose some development rights to some extent, whereas the communities outside the protected areas enjoy the benefits of environmental protection without having to fulfill related obligations. This asymmetry of rights and obligations triggers environmental injustice, and is a crucial factor in determining the effectiveness of policy implementation. The changing patterns of environmental (in)justice are shaped by negotiations between governments at different scales and local stakeholders, and involve complex political processes. Therefore, this study introduces a theoretical framework that integrates scale politics and environmental justice to explore the distinctive-scale political processes involved in achieving environmental justice in ecological protection areas under China's segmented and hierarchical political system. First, the pattern of environmental justice is shaped by the highest-scale actors among relevant stakeholders. Second, intermediate-scale actors tend to prioritize compliance with policy directives from higher scales and may use methods such as scale retention or devolution to limit the interest demands of lower scales. Finally, lower-scale actors may seek to enhance their political discourse power through scale escalation when faced with unjust situations created by a top-down decision-making system. Empirically, this research selected a village yet to be reconstructed in an ecological protection zone in the central provincial capital city of China as a case study and analyzed the environmental injustice faced by the villagers and pathways to change the injustice. The empirical findings suggest that, without prior consideration of the development rights of local residents, strict top-down ecological environmental protection methods often aggravate tense relationships among actors at different scales. Specifically, this leads to environmental injustice, in which the development rights of local residents at lower scales are overshadowed by the protection requirements enforced by higher-scale government entities. Environmental (in)justice includes the allocation, institutional, and recognition dimensions. In response, scale reconstruction emerges as an informal strategy for lower-scale residents to seek justice. Through this strategy, lower-scale residents appeal to higher-scale governments to intervene in the development issues of ecological protection areas, and thus strive to achieve equality in development rights and protective responsibilities. This process opens a way to achieve environmental justice. Additionally, the reliance on informal mechanisms underscores the lack of formal mechanisms in China to ensure that lower-scale groups have fair rights to urban ecological environmental protection. To address the challenges, this article integrates theoretical insights with empirical evidence to propose the following policy measures:(1) strengthening the top-down transmission of policies to implement the principle of balancing ecological protection by improving people's livelihoods, (2) establishing mechanisms for achieving environmental justice through the balanced allocation of rights and responsibilities, and (3) enhancing the democratic participation of relevant stakeholders in planning.

Abstract Advancing research and practice that recognize diverse worldviews, knowledge systems, and value orientations is essential to enable transformative change towards sustainability. Biocultural approaches recognize the diverse ways in which people relate to nature, offering a potential pathway for sustainability transformations. However, recent scholarship on biocultural approaches to sustainability has highlighted that social aspects such as equity and justice have not been substantively addressed, whereby gender issues have been overlooked to a great extent. Through qualitative content analysis, this review synthesizes the conceptualizations of gender and social difference within the literature on biocultural approaches to sustainability published in English and Spanish. The biocultural literature predominantly focuses on describing knowledge and management practices, neglecting power and gender relations that affect access and control over resources, and how different axes of social difference matter across different social‐ecological contexts. Overall, we found that gender considerations within the literature reviewed do not build upon feminist and gender theories. Based on these findings, we provide insights into how more nuanced engagements, especially in relation to feminist theories and tools as intersectionality and decolonial perspectives, can allow for more just scholarly efforts to address biocultural relations. Finally, we draw attention to responsible and engaged praxis towards promoting biocultural approaches that include the diverse perspectives of those who can contribute to transformative change, and which prevent the reinforcement of gender‐based power relations. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Abstract All over the world, waste and its disposal are becoming a more prominent issue, as landfills swell up and growing evidence points to its contribution to climate change and environmental degradation. In the developing world, waste pickers sort through solid waste and sell it to vendors, who will recycle the product into something consumable. The work they do is vital to climate change mitigation, as well as urban cleanliness. In a way, waste pickers, especially in India, are vehicles of environmental justice, but they are often discriminated against and subjected to inhumane working conditions. In this environment, the pandemic hit, making waste pickers’ already precarious life even worse. This paper attempts to fill the gap in the academic literature by compiling a systemized literature review of the impacts of COVID-19 on waste-pickers’ lives using an environmental justice perspective. The review also uses a Feminist Political Ecology perspective to illuminate the double jeopardy that female waste pickers face in the era of COVID-19, which academia often ignores. Ultimately, this paper shows that COVID-19 exacerbated the preexisting injustices that the waste picker community face and created an immense burden on women. This paper will show that it is important to notice the differentiation between female and male waste picker challenges, especially at the crux of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper has important policy implications as well as research considerations for both environmental justice and feminist political ecology scholars.

The period since the 1970s has seen a «cultural turn» that affected many areas of historical research. Environmental history is no exception. It emerged in the United States five decades ago and was strongly influenced by intellectual history. However, in the 1990s, the focus of environmental historians gradually shifted towards «new cultural history». Although foreign historiography has repeatedly acknowledged this shift, the underlying reasons that prompted historians to pursue the new research path remain overlooked. This article seeks to bridge the «gap» in the historiography of human interactions with the natural world over time, an important branch of history. The results of a thorough analysis of the major works written by American historians between the 1970s and 2010s show that the «cultural turn» in the American historiography of environmental history was gradual and included two distinct stages. During the first stage, from the 1980s to the mid-1990s, historians explored the problems of environmental history from the perspectives of postcolonial and gender discourses. The second stage, from the mid-1990s to the present day, was marked by a rethinking of the concept of «wilderness», as well as an emphasis on a variety of previously unaddressed problems of environmental history.

Research Purpose: Water is a natural resource essential to human development, with multiple uses, which generates pollution processes, with environmental, economic, and social consequences. This work aims to evaluate the social participation in the management of water resources in Portugal and Brazil. Methodology: For this, we adopted the methodological procedures of systematic literature review, investigation of the documentation on the Council of the Hydrographic Region (CRH) of Center/Portugal and the Hydrographic Basin Committee (CBH) of the Apodi/Mossoró River in Brazil and obtaining field data with the application of interviews to the members of these two institutions. Findings: It was found that the participation of the members of CRH Center/Portugal and the CBH of the Apodi/Mossoró River in Brazil refers to the similarities in the degree of participation, diversity of the segment, number of members, participation of civil society, and participation of the private sector; however, they are distinct concerning the degree of interest, ways of choosing the members, their level of knowledge, the interaction between the members and the participation of the public authorities. Originality/Value: Therefore, it is recommended for the evolution of these management models a deeper knowledge of their representatives, through the diagnosis of the socioeconomic profile, as well as their environmental perception.

Abstract Urbanization is a key driver of global environmental change and is adversely impacting wildlife populations. Human tolerance for wildlife is critical to wildlife conservation in urban areas. Using metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, United States, as a case study, we investigated human tolerance for a range of different wildlife species. Almost half of the human–wildlife interactions that are reported to the state wildlife agency originate from metropolitan Atlanta, which is one of the fastest growing metropolises in the United States. We surveyed a representative sample of 1006 residents of metropolitan Atlanta in 2022. We found heterogeneity in respondents' tolerance for various species, although most respondents were intolerant of bobcats, coyotes, opossums and snakes. Respondents' tolerance for different species largely depended on their attitudes and emotions towards species, and their basic beliefs pertaining to wildlife and the relationships between humans and wildlife. We found some evidence that tolerance also depended on people's prior interactions with wildlife, their beliefs that they can mitigate conflicts with wildlife and their demographic characteristics. Our results suggest that communication that improves urban residents' attitudes towards wildlife and/or reinforces positive emotions towards wildlife may increase wildlife tolerance in urban areas. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Abstract Parks are an integral component of cities. Ensuring city residents have equitable and easy access to parks is crucial for human well‐being. In temperate climates, park accessibility is particularly important in the summer months when these green spaces provide an area to recreate, exercise and escape indoor temperatures and heat emanating from paved and built surfaces. However, there are well‐known disparities in park accessibility in cities globally that may threaten the health of city residents, especially with global warming. We examined some of the largest city parks (>50 ha) in Toronto, Canada, by comparing park activity, housing demographics and daily weather patterns. We found that parks that provided more green space area per resident were situated in neighbourhoods that had higher proportions of single‐detached housing, higher automobile use and fewer multistorey apartments. We also found a strong correlation between park activity with population density and the number of amenities in the park. Surprisingly, we found no relationship between park activity and daily weather patterns, although park use was higher on weekends and holidays. These results suggest denser communities are at a disadvantage because they have proportionately less park area within walking distance in addition to having no private green spaces (e.g. backyards). We recommend revising municipal zoning around certain parks and the creation of new green spaces as methods to balance park provisioning in the city. Our findings suggest that designing and maintaining accessible, amenity‐rich parks is an important strategy for promoting health and well‐being in urban populations. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Assessing the social and economic vulnerability of populations within a given area is essential for conducting environmental equity evaluations and devising effective public policies to mitigate disparities. However, prevailing indicators used to measure socio-economic vulnerability exhibit several shortcomings. Primarily relying on factor analysis, these indicators face challenges in terms of comparability over time, lack of standardized scales, and inherent limitations associated with composite indicators. To address these shortcomings, we propose a novel approach that estimates the number of potentially vulnerable individuals by constructing a synthetic population. Our methodology, developed using open tools and datasets, offers a scalable solution applicable to the entire Canadian context. The resulting percentage of potentially vulnerable populations demonstrates strong correlations with traditional vulnerability indicators commonly used in Canada, while overcoming their inherent limitations. The generated dataset holds significant potential and serves as a valuable resource for both researchers and governmental organizations. It provides a robust foundation for conducting equity analyses, assessments, and policy evaluations, thereby facilitating evidence-based decision-making processes aimed at promoting social and economic inclusivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ObjectiveMethodResultsConclusionEnvironmental education (EE) is an approach which should be activated immediately to address environmental injustice and catastrophe. Though broad agreement exists with the need for EE in the US, there is an implementation gap.This study offers a thematic analysis from qualitative interviews with 13 teachers and administrators who worked in a large, urban district in the Western United States, identifying how curriculum can address the implementation gap.We identify three themes emergent from the interviews: In the absence of formal training and curriculum, teachers meet student needs and interests in the environment through a complementary curriculum and ecological mindedness. Our participants’ recollection of their experiences with EE demonstrates the power of alignment thinking to move EE into classrooms now. Finally, greater attention to environmental justice would support teachers and students.The paper concludes with insights this project brings to education scholars, including encouragement for curricular interventions related to environmental justice and supporting preK-12 professionals for the healing of life on Earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides a content and frame analysis of the news media advocacy of prominent environmental non‐governmental organizations (ENGOs) in Canada. We find that these organizations have an important voice in shaping how climate change is framed in news media, but that ecological modernization frames and narratives, which avoid issues of power, conflict, and social‐transformative change, are dominant. Core elements of this discourse are contested, however, as some ENGOs oppose the fossil sector, critique the shortcomings of proffered (technological) climate solutions, and call for muscular interventions aimed at energy transition. We also find that environmental justice frames – particularly those focused on Indigenous rights – are gaining traction, revealing a promising pathway of influence for ENGOs focused on climate justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rising momentum according to the environmentalist voices seeking climate justice for more equity and the importance of encouraging environmental justice mechanisms and tools, in this perspective, the objective of this study is to analyze in depth the substantial role of natural resources abundance in the environmental inequality issue. For this purpose, this study adopted the eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), LightGBM, Natural Gradient Boosting (NGBoost), Hybrid hybrid upper confidence bound-long short‐term memory-Genetic Algorithm (UCB-LSTM-GA), and the Shapley Additive Explanation (SAE) machine learning algorithms in the context of 21 emerging economies spanning the years 2001 to 2019. The empirical results reveal that natural resource abundance, foreign trade, and foreign direct investment inflows contribute all to higher levels of environmental inequality. However, higher levels of per capita income, gross fixed capital formation, and institutional quality contribute to lower levels of environmental inequality. Addressing climate justice holistically through an integrated supranational vision is significant since every step taken toward eradicating environmental racism matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Littering of cigarette butts is a major environmental challenge. In 2022, ~124 billion cigarette butts were littered in the United States. This litter may pose an environmental justice concern by disproportionately affecting human and environmental health in communities of color or communities of low socioeconomic status. However, the lack of data on the distribution and magnitude of cigarette butt littering prevents an environmental justice analysis and limits the ability to tackle this environmental challenge. We conducted an environmental justice assessment of tobacco product waste, specifically cigarette butts, through spatially-explicit, place-based estimates across the contiguous U.S. We built a bottom-up model by synthesizing census tract-level population and smoking prevalence, state-level cigarette consumption, and published littering data to assess the spatial pattern of cigarette consumption and littering, and its implications for environmental injustice in >71,600 U.S. census tracts. Further, we compared the model output to urbanicity (rural-urban commuting area) and Social-Environmental Risk (SER; CDC Environmental Justice Index). Cigarette butt density was not uniformly distributed across the U.S. and ranged from 0–45.5 butts/m2, with an area-weighted average of 0.019 ± 0.0005 butts/m2. Cigarette butt density was 96 times higher in metropolitan vs. rural areas. Cigarette butt density increased significantly with SER, with 5.6 times more littered cigarette butts, and a steeper response to population density, in census tracts with the highest SER vs. the lowest SER. These results demonstrate the relative influences of location, smoking prevalence, and population density, and show that cigarette butt littering is a potential environmental justice concern in the U.S. This study provides information that may help devise targeted strategies to reduce cigarette butt pollution and prevent disproportionate impacts. The spatial data layer with place-based cigarette consumption and butt density is a tool that can support municipal, state, and federal level policy work and future studies on associations among cigarette butt pollution and environmental health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the critical issue of water insecurity and its multifaceted impact on and relationship to the human rights and environmental justice conditions within Rohingya refugee camps located in New Delhi, India. A comprehensive mixed-methods approach was employed to investigate water-related challenges within a refugee camp in Madanpur Khadar, region in Delhi. Qualitative methods including focused group discussions and one-on-one household interviews were conducted to allow residents' perceptions from diverse groups and examine their experiences. Structured surveys were administered to gather quantitative data on water access, sanitation, health, and socio-economic factors. Additionally,, literature surveys and document archival research provided contextual insights. This study underscores the pressing water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) challenges faced by Rohingya refugees in the area, revealing irregular water supply, impacting residents' daily lives and hygiene practices. The majority of families in the camp, with an average of 6 members in each family, can only collect 30–40 L of water to meet all their needs, from consumption to personal hygiene, which is significantly insufficient. This situation has resulted in severe health consequences for the camp residents. Alarmingly, over 90% of the female respondents reported experiencing issues such as urinary infections. This paper gives a comprehensive analysis of the multidimensionality of rights that intersect with and are affected by WaSH issues. The poor WaSH conditions in the camp directly hinder the fulfillment of fundamental human rights. It not only disrupts the basic sanitation need but has negative economic repercussions and causes mental distress. This study concludes by targeted recommendations aimed at improving the conditions prevailing within the camp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many problems at the intersection of nuclear technology, policy, and society can be thought of as wicked problems. Wicked problems--a formulation put forward in what is now a landmark paper by Rittel and Webber (design and planning scholars respectively)--are those that lack definitive formulations, resist durable resolution, do not have an exhaustively identifiable set of true or false solutions, and are often framed entirely differently by different entities experiencing the problem. Every attempt to solve a wicked problem is a solution attempt made in the real world and thus has consequences and implications that can potentially be far-reaching. This paper describes the underlying philosophy, design, and implementation of a course on "Nuclear Technology, Policy, and Society" taught in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan. The course explores some of nuclear technology's most pressing challenges (or its 'wicked problems'). Through this course students explore the origins of these problems--be they social or technical, they are offered tools--conceptual and methodological--to make sense of these problems, and guided through a semester-long exploration of how engineers can work towards their resolution, and to what degree these problems can be solved through institutional transformation and/or a transformation in our own practices and norms as a field. The underlying pedagogical philosophy, implementation, and response to the course are described here for other instructors who might wish to create a similar course, or for non-academic nuclear engineers, who might perhaps, in these pages, find a vocabulary for articulating and reflecting on the nature of these problems as encountered in their praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government (both central and regional) has addressed the issue of tidal flooding in Pekalongan City through various means. However, tidal floods will continue to pose a threat to Pekalongan City in the future. It is necessary to integrate policy programs and research approaches that adhere to the principles of sustainable development (ecological justice). One of the popular models today is the Life Cycle Approach (LCA). This study aims to 1) develop a tidal flood mitigation model in Pekalongan City using a Life Cycle Approach (LCA), 2) Analyze the advantages and disadvantages of applying a tidal flood mitigation model with a life cycle approach in the coastal area of Pekalongan City. This research is a development research carried out using a Participative Action Research (PRA) approach. Data collection techniques involve triangulation and analyzed using mixed methods. The results of this study indicate that: 1) the tidal flood mitigation model in Pekalongan City with a life cycle approach meets validation standards/criteria, 2) advantages: oriented to long-term solutions, more effective in overcoming tidal flood problems, can reduce maintenance costs, encourage involvement community, can improve environmental quality. Disadvantages of LCA: requires more time and cost, lack of flexibility, difficult decision-making, inability to guarantee project success, and lack of community participation, 3) Solutions to overcome weaknesses or disadvantages in implementing a tidal flood mitigation model with a life cycle approach in the coastal area of Pekalongan City, namely: a) speeding up the planning process, b) enhancing flexibility, c) improving transparency of decision-making, d) conducting simulations and trials, and e) increasing public participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last two decades, substantial studies have been conducted to assess the feasibility of a multi-pollutant strategy for managing air quality in the United States. Given the inherent complexity of multi-pollutant air quality challenges, including fine particulate matter (PM2.5), ozone (O3), and air toxics, this paper undertook a multi-pollutant analysis at both national and local levels. Our analysis incorporated O3 and PM2.5 concentrations, air toxics that increase the risk of cancer, environmental justice (EJ) data, emissions data, and monitoring data. Initially, we identified counties across the continental U.S. with heightened multi-pollutant exposures and EJ concerns. Subsequently, a case study within the Detroit metropolitan area was conducted, revealing a clear overlap between multi-pollutant and EJ issues, underscoring the disproportionate burden on disadvantaged communities. The analysis of detailed emissions data unveiled potential co-control benefits in this region. Lastly, employing a proximity analysis method, we assessed environmental issues surrounding points of interest such as monitoring sites and emissions sectors, in the Detroit metropolitan area. The results demonstrated that monitoring sites with the highest monitoring value, alongside top-ranked emissions sectors such as electric utilities, coke ovens, and iron and steel production, were likely to exhibit elevated air pollutant concentrations/risks and associated EJ concerns in their vicinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the realm of climate policy, issues of environmental justice (EJ) are often treated as second-order affairs compared to overarching sustainability goals. We argue that EJ is in fact critical to successfully addressing our national and global climate challenges; indeed, centering equity amplifies the voices of the diverse constituencies most impacted by climate change and that are needed to build successful coalitions that shape and advance climate change policy. We illustrate this perspective by highlighting the experience of California and the contentious processes by which EJ became integrated into the state's climate action efforts. We examine the achievements and shortcomings of California's commitment to climate justice and discuss how lessons from the Golden State are influencing the evolution of current federal climate change policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

California agriculture will undergo significant transformations over the next few decades in response to climate extremes, environmental regulation and policy encouraging environmental justice, and economic pressures that have long driven agricultural changes. With several local climates suited to a variety of crops, periodically abundant nearby precipitation, and public investments that facilitated abundant low-priced irrigation water, California hosts one of the most diverse and productive agroecosystems in the world. California farms supply nearly half of the high-nutrient fruit, tree nut, and vegetable production in the United States. Climate change impacts on productivity and profitability of California agriculture are increasing and forebode problems for standard agricultural practices, especially water use norms. We highlight many challenges California agriculture confronts under climate change through the direct and indirect impacts on the biophysical conditions and ecosystem services that drive adaptations in farm practices and water accessibility and availability. In the face of clear conflicts among competing interests, we consider ongoing and potential sustainable and equitable solutions, with particular attention to how technology and policy can facilitate progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid legalization of recreational marijuana across states has created environmental and social justice issues, particularly with indoor cultivation. Despite its federal illegality, twenty-four states and various territories have legalized marijuana, igniting a surge in indoor cultivation that bears significant environmental and social consequences. Indoor cultivation facilities require massive energy inputs, resulting in grid strain, pollution, and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, the placement of these facilities often occurs in historically marginalized low-income communities, furthering environmental injustice and social harms, as these areas are disproportionately affected by the pollutants emitted from the cultivation processes, such as molds, bacteria, and chemical hazards from pesticides and fossil fuel-based energy sources. This Article delves into the intersection of environmental and social justice and the cannabis industry, highlighting how current practices exacerbate longstanding inequalities. It reveals that nonwhite ownership in the industry is strikingly low due to, among other things, high capital entry barriers and licensing challenges. This Article argues for a reevaluation of state policies regarding the siting of cultivation facilities, suggesting a two-pronged approach to mitigate injustice: enhanced environmental reviews that prohibit unbridled siting of these facilities in marginalized communities as well as mandatory community benefit agreements for commercial growers. Such measures aim to offer environmental relief, community involvement, and economic opportunities to the affected populations. By addressing these disparities, states can promote a more equitable cannabis industry that is mindful of its environmental footprint and its social impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The climate crisis is a perilous yet underexamined example of the intersection of environmental injustice and reproductive injustice. The physical manifestations of the climate crisis affect key elements of reproductive justice: women’s rights to have children, to not have children, and to parent children in healthy, sustainable communities. Reams of studies document climate disaster-driven gender violence, loss of access to healthcare and reproductive services, as well as direct and deadly health effects of climate change on maternal health, fetal development, infants, and children. Despite these profound impacts, the environmental and reproductive justice movements remain largely siloed, particularly in the legal community. This Article makes two interventions into existing legal scholarship. First, the Article identifies an intersectional nexus of hazard between environmental and reproductive justice, which is especially acute for women of color living in under-resourced communities. It argues that environmental injustices in the context of the climate crisis undermine reproductive justice. Second, the Article explores how the movements can align strands of their advocacy and suggests how advocates can leverage various legal and policy strategies to mitigate these intersectional injustices. It argues for a ground-up approach based on community power-building and interdisciplinary cooperation, which can inform legal and policy solutions at scale. Collective action to foster health and dignity has never been more urgent, as climate change harms escalate, maternal health deteriorates, and the Supreme Court issues decisions shredding reproductive autonomy and circumscribing environmental regulatory authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological environmental protection is an important support for China to achieve ecological civilization, but it often encounters challenges in fairly distributing protection responsibilities and development rights between the wider society and local communities living in protected areas. Ecological protection planning is an instrument for reconstructing environmental protection responsibilities and development rights among different social groups: the communities within the protected areas bear the responsibility for ecological protection but may lose some development rights to some extent, whereas the communities outside the protected areas enjoy the benefits of environmental protection without having to fulfill related obligations. This asymmetry of rights and obligations triggers environmental injustice, and is a crucial factor in determining the effectiveness of policy implementation. The changing patterns of environmental (in)justice are shaped by negotiations between governments at different scales and local stakeholders, and involve complex political processes. Therefore, this study introduces a theoretical framework that integrates scale politics and environmental justice to explore the distinctive-scale political processes involved in achieving environmental justice in ecological protection areas under China's segmented and hierarchical political system. First, the pattern of environmental justice is shaped by the highest-scale actors among relevant stakeholders. Second, intermediate-scale actors tend to prioritize compliance with policy directives from higher scales and may use methods such as scale retention or devolution to limit the interest demands of lower scales. Finally, lower-scale actors may seek to enhance their political discourse power through scale escalation when faced with unjust situations created by a top-down decisionmaking system. Empirically, this research selected a village yet to be reconstructed in an ecological protection zone in the central provincial capital city of China as a case study and analyzed the environmental injustice faced by the villagers and pathways to change the injustice. The empirical findings suggest that, without prior consideration of the development rights of local residents, strict top-down ecological environmental protection methods often aggravate tense relationships among actors at different scales. Specifically, this leads to environmental injustice, in which the development rights of local residents at lower scales are overshadowed by the protection requirements enforced by higher-scale government entities. Environmental (in)justice includes the allocation, institutional, and recognition dimensions. In response, scale reconstruction emerges as an informal strategy for lower-scale residents to seek justice. Through this strategy, lower-scale residents appeal to higher-scale governments to intervene in the development issues of ecological protection areas, and thus strive to achieve equality in development rights and protective responsibilities. This process opens a way to achieve environmental justice. Additionally, the reliance on informal mechanisms underscores the lack of formal mechanisms in China to ensure that lower-scale groups have fair rights to urban ecological environmental protection. To address the challenges, this article integrates theoretical insights with empirical evidence to propose the following policy measures: (1) strengthening the top-down transmission of policies to implement the principle of balancing ecological protection by improving people's livelihoods, (2) establishing mechanisms for achieving environmental justice through the balanced allocation of rights and responsibilities, and (3) enhancing the democratic participation of relevant stakeholders in planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document summarizes a symposium presented in the International Journal of Psychology that focuses on the context-dependent drivers of sustainable behavior. The symposium includes presentations on topics such as risk perception, sustainable energy technologies, sustainable seafood choices, message framing, and corporate environmental responsibility. A study conducted in the United States found that different terms used to describe climate change can influence public attitudes and responses. Another study in India examined the impact of groundwater arsenic contamination on mental health and well-being. The study found that affected individuals reported poorer well-being, higher levels of mental health problems, and greater stigma. Additionally, studies explored the relationship between nature exposure and psychological well-being in adolescents, the relationship between noise exposure and mental health symptoms, and the concept of "Ibasho" as a place of acceptance and comfort. These findings provide valuable insights into promoting sustainable behaviors, addressing environmental health issues, and understanding the psychological impact of various factors. [Extracted from the article]

The purpose of this study was to examine the recreational experiences of African American residents in Hillsborough County, Florida at varied levels: institutional, recreational, and personal. To investigate the intricacy of perceptions and experiences among African Americans in the context of outdoor recreation, the first author used qualitative methods to provide in-depth investigation into African American residents' perceptions of recreation in Hillsborough County, Florida. Our analysis revealed four overarching themes: 1) Racialised Outdoor Leisure Identity, 2) Representation Matters, 3) Recreational Constraints and Opportunities, and 4) Equity in Leisure Experiences. The findings of this study add to the literatures on outdoor leisure identity and recreation of African Americans and their perceptions of outdoor identity, why representation matters, how safety constraints are negotiated, especially among women respondents, and of residents' perceptions of equity within their parks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]