IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v16y2018i1p3-d191934.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Validating and Refining EPA’s Traffic Exposure Screening Measure

Author

Listed:
  • Dana Rowangould

    (Sustainable Systems Research, LLC, Albuquerque, NM 87110, USA)

  • Greg Rowangould

    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA)

  • Elena Craft

    (Environmental Defense Fund, Austin, TX 78701, USA)

  • Deb Niemeier

    (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA)

Abstract

Exposure to high air pollutant concentrations results in significant health risks. Many communities of color and low-income communities face disproportionately higher levels of air pollution exposure. Environmental justice (EJ) screening tools play a critical role in focusing early attention on areas with a high likelihood of disparate health impacts. In 2015, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) released EJScreen, a screening tool with indicators of a range of pollution burdens across the US. However, little is known about the accuracy of the screening estimates of pollution exposure. This study compares EJScreen’s traffic proximity air quality metric to dispersion modeling results. Using the area around the Houston Ship Channel, we conduct fine-grained air pollution dispersion modeling to evaluate how closely EJScreen’s indicator approximates estimated roadway air pollution concentrations. We find low correlation between modeled concentrations and the EJScreen roadway air pollution indicator. We extend EJScreen’s roadway air pollution screening method in three ways: (1) using a smaller unit of analysis, (2) accounting for the length of each road segment, and (3) accounting for wind direction. Using the Houston region, we use two of the methods and show that the proposed extensions provide a more accurate transportation air pollution screening assessment at the regional and local level.

Suggested Citation

  • Dana Rowangould & Greg Rowangould & Elena Craft & Deb Niemeier, 2018. "Validating and Refining EPA’s Traffic Exposure Screening Measure," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-14, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2018:i:1:p:3-:d:191934
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/1/3/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/1/3/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rowangould, Dana & Karner, Alex & London, Jonathan, 2016. "Identifying environmental justice communities for transportation analysis," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 151-162.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sharmila Bhandari & P. Grace Tee Lewis & Elena Craft & Skylar W. Marvel & David M. Reif & Weihsueh A. Chiu, 2020. "HGBEnviroScreen: Enabling Community Action through Data Integration in the Houston–Galveston–Brazoria Region," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-14, February.
    2. Raoul S. Liévanos, 2019. "Racialized Structural Vulnerability: Neighborhood Racial Composition, Concentrated Disadvantage, and Fine Particulate Matter in California," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-24, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aryana Soliz, 2021. "Creating Sustainable Cities through Cycling Infrastructure? Learning from Insurgent Mobilities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-21, August.
    2. Pan, Meiyu (Melrose) & Wong, Stephen & Tainter, Francis & Woelfel, Steve & Ryan, Alyssa, 2024. "Integrating equity in transportation scenario planning: A systematic review," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 85-95.
    3. Krapp, Agustina & Barajas, Jesus & Wennink, Audrey, 2021. "Equity-oriented Criteria for Project Prioritization in Regional Transportation Planning," SocArXiv xcbhy, Center for Open Science.
    4. Davidson, Joshua H. & Ryerson, Megan S., 2021. "Modeling regional disparity and the reverse commute," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 124-139.
    5. Wojciech Keblowski & Frédéric Dobruszkes & Kobe Boussauw, 2022. "Moving past sustainable transport studies: Towards a critical perspective on urban transport," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/341191, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    6. Su, Lin & Yan, Xiang & Zhao, Xilei, 2024. "Spatial equity of micromobility systems: A comparison of shared E-scooters and docked bikeshare in Washington DC," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 25-36.
    7. Linovski, Orly & Baker, Dwayne Marshall & Manaugh, Kevin, 2018. "Equity in practice? Evaluations of equity in planning for bus rapid transit," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 75-87.
    8. Geoff Boeing & Yougeng Lu & Clemens Pilgram, 2023. "Local inequities in the relative production of and exposure to vehicular air pollution in Los Angeles," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(12), pages 2351-2368, September.
    9. Bindu Panikkar & Qing Ren & Fosca Bechthold, 2023. "Transportation Justice in Vermont Communities of High Environmental Risk," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-18, January.
    10. Karner, Alex, 2018. "Assessing public transit service equity using route-level accessibility measures and public data," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 24-32.
    11. Kębłowski, Wojciech & Dobruszkes, Frédéric & Boussauw, Kobe, 2022. "Moving past sustainable transport studies: Towards a critical perspective on urban transport," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 74-83.
    12. Sharma, Ishant & Mishra, Sabyasachee & Golias, Mihalis M. & Welch, Timothy F. & Cherry, Christopher R., 2020. "Equity of transit connectivity in Tennessee cities," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    13. Linovski, Orly & Manaugh, Kevin & Baker, Dwayne Marshall, 2022. "The route not taken: Equity and transparency in unfunded transit proposals," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 77-84.
    14. Verlinghieri, Ersilia, 2020. "Learning from the grassroots: A resourcefulness-based worldview for transport planning," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 364-377.
    15. Tierra S. Bills, 2024. "Advancing the practice of regional transportation equity analysis: a San Francisco bay area case study," Transportation, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 911-936, June.
    16. Fried, Travis & Verma, Rishi & Goodchild, Anne, 2024. "Ecommerce and environmental justice in metro Seattle," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    17. Karner, Alex, 2016. "Planning for transportation equity in small regions: Towards meaningful performance assessment," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 46-54.
    18. Carleton, Phillip R. & Porter, J. David, 2018. "A comparative analysis of the challenges in measuring transit equity: definitions, interpretations, and limitations," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 64-75.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2018:i:1:p:3-:d:191934. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.