Consensus Study Report

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This activity was supported by a grant between the National Academy of Sciences and the Bezos Earth Fund. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-71200-2
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-71200-9
Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/27317
Library of Congress Control Number: 2024949404

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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2024. Constructing Valid Geospatial Tools for Environmental Justice. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/27317.

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COMMITTEE ON UTILIZING ADVANCED ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND GEOSPATIAL DATA AND TECHNOLOGIES TO INFORM COMMUNITY INVESTMENT

HARVEY J. MILLER (Co-chair), The Ohio State University

ERIC TATE (Co-chair), Princeton University

SUSAN ANENBERG, George Washington University

LAUREN BENNETT, Esri, Inc.

JAYAJIT CHAKRABORTY, University of California, Santa Barbara

IBRAHEEM KARAYE, Hofstra University

MARCOS LUNA, Salem State University

BHRAMAR MUKHERJEE (NAM), University of Michigan

KATHLEEN SEGERSON (NAS), University of Connecticut

MONICA E. UNSELD, Until Justice Data Partners

WALKER WIELAND, California Environmental Protection Agency

Study Staff

SAMMANTHA MAGSINO, Study Director

CLIFFORD DUKE, Director, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology

DEBORAH GLICKSON, Director, Board on Earth Sciences and Resources

MICHELLE SCHWALBE, Director, Board on Mathematical Sciences and Analytics

ANTHONY DePINTO, Program Officer

SARAH HARTMAN, Mirzayan Fellow (2023)

MILES LANSING, Senior Program Assistant (since July 2023)

OSHANE ORR, Senior Program Assistant (until July 2023)

BRYAN RUFF, Senior Program Assistant (since May 2024)

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Reviewers

This Consensus Study Report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published report as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.

We thank the following individuals for their review of this report:

Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations of this report, nor did they see the final draft before its release. The review of this report was overseen by ALICIA CARRIQUIRY (NAM), Iowa State University, and DAVID DZOMBAK (NAE), Carnegie Mellon University. They were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with the standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the authoring committee and the National Academies.

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Acknowledgments

Many individuals assisted this committee by providing important input. The committee would like to thank the following people who gave presentations and participated in discussions throughout the course of the study.

The committee would like to acknowledge SHELLEY HOOVER at Princeton University whose doctoral work helped shape the committee’s scan of EJ tools and workshop exercise to explore the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool results at the community level.

Contents

PREFACE

SUMMARY

1 INTRODUCTION

Statement of Task

History

Committee Composition

Interpretation of the Statement of Task and Study Boundaries

Committee Information Gathering

Report Organization

2 BACKGROUND AND DEFINITIONS

Community and Community Disadvantage

Disproportionate Exposure to Environmental Hazards

Burdens, Stressors, and Impacts

Multiple Stressors

Cumulative Impacts

Chapter Highlights

3 A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR BUILDING COMPOSITE INDICATORS

Tool Purpose

Binary Versus Nonbinary Tools

Use of Composite Indicators

Constructing Composite Indicators

Geospatial and Administrative Data

Community Engagement and Partnerships

Achieving Trust, Transparency, and Legitimacy

Chapter Highlights

4 ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE TOOLS

Previous Surveys of Environmental Justice Tools

Overview of Selected Tools

Indicator Data Formats

Cumulative Impacts

Overview of the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST)

Chapter Highlights

5 SELECTING AND ANALYZING INDICATORS AND DATASETS AND CEJST INDICATORS

Indicator Selection

Identifying and Analyzing the Datasets to be Used

Categories of Burden in CEJST

Chapter Highlights

6 INDICATOR INTEGRATION

How CEJST Integrates Indicators

Bringing Indicators onto a Common Scale

Weighting Indicators

Integration Approaches

Assessing Robustness

Chapter Highlights

7 IMPORTANCE OF AND METHODS FOR TOOL VALIDATION

Validating to Reflect Reality

Lived Experience and CEJST

Supplemental Analysis of External Variables

Chapter Highlights

8 RECOMMENDATIONS

Transparency, Trust, and Legitimacy

Community Engagement

Documentation

Validation

Defining the Concept to be Measured

Selecting and Assessing Indicators

Integrating Indicators and Cumulative Impact Scoring

Assessing Robustness

Moving Forward

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

APPENDIX B: Public Meeting Agendas

APPENDIX C: Screening Tools Examined by the Committee

APPENDIX D: Example Datasets for Consideration for EJ Tool Indicators

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Preface

Environmental injustice is a pervasive, persistent, and largely unaddressed problem in the United States. Its roots are an amalgamation of longstanding public and private policies and norms that have resulted in a differential concentration of environmental hazards and vulnerabilities across communities. Decades of environmental justice research and activism have shown that the communities most disadvantaged by society exist at the intersection of high levels of hazard exposure, racial and ethnic composition, and poverty. Redressing damage suffered in disadvantaged communities requires intentional actions to mitigate the harms caused by societal marginalization, pollution overburden, and chronic underinvestment. Such mitigative actions are particularly imperative given the profound climate crisis facing the United States and the rest of the world. Disadvantaged communities are particularly vulnerable to ravages of extreme weather induced by global heating.

The Biden Administration’s Justice40 Initiative seeks to rectify these vulnerabilities and build greater resilience by ensuring that 40 percent of benefits from certain federal investments flow to these communities. A fundamental challenge is to identify which communities are disadvantaged, and thus priorities for investment. This report, sponsored by the Bezos Earth Fund, supports these efforts by evaluating the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ’s) Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST), a geospatial mapping tool for identifying “Justice40 communities,” and suggesting data strategies to maximize the tool’s effectiveness. CEJST parallels efforts at the state level to identify the most impacted places and prioritize corrective investments. The primary audiences for this report are the CEQ, federal agencies that will use the current or future versions of CEJST to support investment decision making, and others who may use the tool to evaluate policies and seek funding to increase resilience in American communities.

The committee took their responsibilities seriously and listened carefully to experts, practitioners, and activists in a series of meetings and workshops. A major theme of the report is the importance of integrating the lived experiences and perspectives of communities into multiple aspects of tool development. It is particularly vital to gain this understanding from people and their representatives who are the most overburdened by pollution and adversely affected by underinvestment. Our workshop, Representing Lived Experience in Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, helped cement the principle of centering community perspectives, and we thank all participants for taking the time to share their knowledge.

Several experts presented to the committee about environmental and demographic data and indicators. They include David Folch of Northern Arizona University, Kristin Wood from the Department of Transportation, Weihsueh Chiu from Texas A&M University, and Michaela Saisana from the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. We thank them for taking the time to share their knowledge and perspectives, as they positively informed the committee discussions. In particular, Dr. Saisana’s presentation and publications of the Joint Research Centre helped establish a second central theme of the report: the need for a systematic approach when constructing composite indicators used in policy decision making. Creating a reliable and valid composite indicator requires more than identifying and combining relevant quantitative measures. It should also be based on a clearly defined and vetted conceptual framework that is thoroughly coherent with the selection of indicators and their integration. The combination of expanding spatial data availability, growing policy interest at the intersection of physical and social environments, and increasing need for publicly accessible decision-making tools suggests that the role of composite indicators in public policy is likely to rise. One of our desired outcomes of this report is to foster in the United States the careful and systematic approaches to indicator construction that we see in European policy and practice.

The committee formed for this study represents a diverse group of people, disciplinary backgrounds, and professional communities of practice. It has been a great privilege working with them to advance understanding of the state of knowledge and paths forward for environmental justice tools. The work was intellectually rich, collegial, and equally shared, resulting in a truly consensus report. We thank the members of the committee for the commitment, thoughtfulness, professionalism, and spirit they brought to this important task. We also thank the hardworking NASEM staff, particularly Sammantha Magsino and Anthony DePinto, who are the unsung heroes in this study. They kept the committee on task and moving forward and played no small part in helping to transform our ideas into the actionable knowledge in this report.

Personal Notes

Harvey Miller: We are at a hinge point in the history of humanity, and the choices we make now will reverberate for generations. One does not often have the opportunity and privilege to participate in an activity that addresses the profound and consequential questions at the heart of this consensus study. I sincerely hope that this report helps to

move our nation forward toward a future with environmental justice for all. My personal thanks to my co-chair, Eric Tate, the other members of the committee, and the National Academies staff, all of whom made this process as smooth and productive as possible.

Eric Tate: I am deeply appreciative of the opportunity for meaningful public service afforded by co-chairing this study. Reflecting on connections between Justice40 and the establishment of this committee reminded me of a passage from the final public speech of Frederick Douglass. Offering a roadmap to realizing the principles of liberty and equality, he called for America to “recognize the fact that the rights of the humblest citizen are as worthy of protection as are those of the highest, and your problem will be solved.” My hope is that this report plays a constructive role in more closely aligning our national ideals of equal protection for all, with our scientific practices for modeling environmental injustice and our public policies for dismantling it.

Harvey Miller, Co-Chair
Eric Tate, Co-Chair
Committee on Utilizing Advanced Environmental Health and Geospatial Data and Technologies to Inform Community Investment

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