ABSTRACT
Environmental justice is an inherently spatial issue, as one of its central concerns revolves around the relationship between the spatial distribution of environmental risk and the spatial distribution of traditionally disenfranchised population groups, such as the poor, the vulnerable, and racial and ethnic minorities. This chapter reviews the application of spatial statistics in environmental justice research and the specific spatial statistical techniques that have been employed by environmental justice researchers. It begins with a description of the conventional statistical approach to environmental justice which has been critiqued and which serves as the basis for considerations of spatial statistical issues. The chapter then addresses the issue of spatial scale of analysis as embodied in the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP). Several specific spatial statistical techniques which have been prominently used in environmental justice research are then presented, including spatial clustering, spatial econometric modelling, multilevel modelling, and other techniques. The chapter discusses the future of spatial statistical analysis in environmental justice research.
