IN PROGRESS | Environmental Justice in the NRV

IGC Capstone Project | Interfaces of Global Change

Environmental Justice in the New River Valley Website

Student Members:

• Luke Goodman, School of Public and International Affairs
• Namrata Shanmukh Panji, Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Junyao Kang, Geosciences 
• Paul Risteca, Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Charles Sterling, Biological Systesms Engineering

Faculty Mentors:

• Dr. Julia Gohlke, Population Health Sciences
• Dr. Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz, Civil and Environmental Engineering

In the roughly 350 years since European settlement, the New River Valley (NRV) has undergone substantial land use changes due to human activities. Such shifts in geography have inevitably altered the interactions between the NRV people and their surrounding environment, giving rise to several environmental justice (EJ) issues disproportionately affecting people of color and low-income communities. To address these, this capstone group created an interactive website focused on EJ within the NRV to equip community members with the information they need to voice their rights. The website has five key sections centered around the NRV: an introduction, air quality, water quality, land use, and EJ advocacy. In each section, a high-level explanation of the science behind deteriorating environmental quality, and how to evaluate it, is provided. A compilation of EJ groups in the NRV that actively advocate for action against local sources of pollution is also listed. The website provides a historical accounts of EJ issues in the NRV, and acts as a hub for publicly available environmental data where users are led to various online resources with up-to-date environmental quality metrics and given a guide to navigating these resources. 

Visit the EJ in the NRV Website here