Validating and Refining EPA’s Traffic Exposure Screening Measure

Dana Rowangould, Greg Rowangould, Elena Craft and Deb Niemeier
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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

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-14

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.

Keywords: air pollution; traffic; EJScreen; spatial; roadway (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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