Advancing environmental social justice by examining intra-urban social inequity

Session: Environmental Justice, Environmental Work, and Resilience
Type: Mixed Paper Session

Abstract

This study investigates the relation between socioeconomic factors and land surface temperature (LST) for Phoenix, Arizona. Household property values and median household income have significantly negative correlation with LST. A positive correlation is observed between percentage of household below poverty level and LST. The races of American Indian and Alaska Native alone (AA) and Black or African American alone (BL), have a consistently positive relationship with LST. On the contrary, the races of Asian alone (AS) and White alone (WH) presented a consistently negative relationship with LST. For the race of Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (HP), it has a negative correlation with LST during summer daytime and nighttime. Hispanic or Latino (HI) was positively correlated with LST consistently. Conversely, Non-Hispanic (NH) has a negative relationship. Diversity Index (DI) is significantly positively correlated with LST, indicating that a more diverse race/ethnicity situation would expose to higher LST.

Authors