Reassessing Inclusion Of Environmental Justice In The EIS Process: A GIS-Based Study Of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport

Abstract

Populations identified as poor or minority under federal guidelines are protected against discriminatory actions which may result from a myriad of activities, including transportation system capacity enhancements: those infrastructure construction projects intended to improve or expand routes and facilities. The outcomes of environmental justice investigations, and, consequently, the conclusions based on the results of such studies, are critically dependent upon the analytical strategy to be applied in deriving statistical outcomes and the spatial resolution of the research design as dictated by the researcher’s choice of reference unit and the selection of a particular areal analysis methodology. This paper investigates the potentially confounding effects of certain research strategies, as applied to an analysis of a large midwestern airport and examines the implications of the outcomes for capacity enhancements within the context of the air transportation system.