| Description |
This study puts a spotlight on the relationships among toxic sites (i.e. Brownfields, Superfunds, and Toxic Release Inventories), income, race, and water features such as groundwater wells and streams, all within the Salt Lake County, Utah target area. There were two hypotheses to be tested, which asked the questions: are toxic sites disproportionately located in low-income and minority communities in SL, and do these site proximities to water bodies such as lakes and streams affect water quality assessments and groundwater wells? The analyses in this research were completed with literature reviews on toxic sites and water with an environmental justice perspective, as well as implementing geographic information systems (GIS) to create cartographic representations of this environmental issue-spatial pattern analyses were conducted, and Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) and Getis-Ord Gi* (GOG) were the geoprocessing tools used to identify any correlations among the toxic sites, demographics, and water features. From analyzing the figures, the findings reported within this study align with many of its similar predecessors: vulnerable communities such as people of color (POC) and low-income groups have a disproportionate number of toxic sitings near them, and these toxic sites are inversely correlated to the assessments on water quality. |
