ABSTRACT
Since the 1980s, a variety of analytic approaches have been used in environmental justice (EJ) research to estimate the geographic boundaries of areas exposed to environmental hazard sources and measure exposure to environmental risks. This chapter provides an overview and critical assessment of these approaches. It examines the commonly used methods and related assumptions, discusses their strengths and limitations, and traces how methodological approaches for assessing environmental exposure for EJ research have evolved over time. The different methodologies that have been employed in prior EJ studies to derive the geographic definition and measurement of risk exposure are classified into four broad categories: spatial coincidence analysis; distance-based analysis; plume-based analysis; and cumulative exposure analysis. The chapter concludes by highlighting key limitations of current approaches and data sources, and identifying future research needs associated with spatial representation and quantification of environmental risk for EJ analysis.
