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The distribution of pollution and environmental justice in Puerto Rico: a quantitative analysis
Citation:
Wu, S. AND M. T. HEBERLING. The distribution of pollution and environmental justice in Puerto Rico: a quantitative analysis. POPULATION AND ENVIRONMENT. Springer, New York, NY, 35(2):113-132, (2013).
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public
Description:
Because few empirical studies on environmental justice and pollution distribution exist, we examine both issues in Puerto Rico. This research is part of a larger US EPA project related to sustainability issues. We calculate an environmental Gini coefficient using Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data from 1988-2008 to quantify the pollution distribution. Our findings suggest no significant change in pollution inequality over this time, but the value of the Gini coefficients remains high indicating an unequal distribution of pollution in Puerto Rico. Our environmental justice study attempts to find empirical evidence linking local levels of releases to several socioeconomic and demographic indicators. Using Spearman correlations, we find various impacts of socio-demographic indicators on pollution levels at different points throughout the pollution distribution. Therefore, we employ quantile regression using TRI and US Census data from 2005-2008. We find exposure to pollution to be a positive function of indicators including the percent of the population which is Asian and non-Puerto Rican Hispanic, poverty and unemployment, and a negative function of indicators including education, age, and car ownership. We also investigate the role of income indicators in affecting pollution levels and only find a few significant links.
