A Web-Based Atlas of Environmental Justice for Coachella Valley, Southern California

The US Environmental Protection Agency (2014) defines environmental justice as “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” Environmental issues caused by human practices affect human life in numerous ways. As a result, different regions exhibit varying interactions between the environment and the corresponding human practices. The lack of an adequate communication medium for the existing environmental justice issues has left the residents of Coachella Valley with unattended and overlooked environmental hazards. Although the victims are aware of the problems, other members of the society and government agencies need to realize the effects of the deadly hazards on the Valley residents. This project examined the vulnerability of different communities to environmental hazards based on their linguistic, ethnic, and racial diversities. To target a broader audience, GIS and Web technologies have proven to be effective in exploring the spatial interactions between residents and geographic contexts. Thus, the project adapted an interactive Web-based solution to enable visualization of the spatial patterns between environmental and social factors. Considering the environmental factors, including pesticide use, water distribution, housing, green spaces, and waste facilities and dumpsites, an interactive Web application was developed using ArcGIS API for JavaScript