We developed a correlative study between indicators that relate to the socioeconomic status of communities and those that relate to the impact of COVID-19. Those correlations help highlight the environmental justice issues worsened by the pandemic. By combining data from the space agencies and external data, as well as producing graphics of the aforementioned information on Los Angeles, our selected city, we visualize those impacts. We hope to demonstrate the viability of such methods to convert data to information more directly relevant to the dashboard and policy making.

As members of minority communities in the US, we have witnessed first-hand how environmental and political decisions by those in power have far-reaching impact in minority communities. Therefore, we went on an expansive search for relevant data. Besides the space agency data provided, we used Open Street Maps [insert other tools]. 

We mainly used Python to conduct the coding part, we manipulated data with Numpy and Pandas packages, and used Matplotlib for visualization. We also used Excel as supplementary for data analysis.

We mainly encountered difficulties finding data of usable time ranges, accuracy, level of detail and reliability. Besides, we lacked time series data for our selected city, Los Angles. Most of the external data we used, only have two periods. As a result, many time series statistical method (e.g. building OLS regression model) could not be applied in this project.

However, even with lack of resources, we finally made an achievement of delineating some vulnerable regions in Los Angles, and provided some policy suggestions based on insight of real data. We also found some deficiencies of EO Dashboard, and give suggestions to it. 

We access the space agency data by querying the provided APIs with our retrieved value x,y,z value for the tile which contains LA. 

Since our challenge is about environmental justice during COVID-19, we mainly focus on the environmental and economic data of a certain region we picked (Los Angeles), which are provided by the space agencies and local/regional environmental/socio-economic hazard assessment entities. 

The demo of our project is a 7-page Powerpoint slide

The link for a PDF version (recommended) is:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1svc3D_4gFtp-6RRRFn73ZHwu4z8NsexS/view?usp=sharing

The link for a PPT version is:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZXGTdGXUgRu1yIX4_reYDM70aKTmXyIt/view?usp=sharing

We deeply appreciate the efforts that have been made to make these datasets available for research use. However, we did encounter several difficulties in handling those data.

Firstly, it was challenging to integrate EO data with those from external sources. We think it would be helpful to have multiple APIs available for EO dashboard in order to attain higher adaptability and flexibility of data analysis.

Secondly, we believe that more data could be available for higher quality in analysis. Specifically, a larger number of indicators on the dashboard could reflect more varied issues, and more fine-grained data on the map with more time stamps could assist statistical analysis. It would also be helpful to have more complete database on all regions in the world for better comparative studies, not just concentrating on certain metropolitans or regions where data tends to be more easily attained. Additionally, the EO indicators could be named and described more clearly to demonstrate its methodology, intentions, and functions. 

EO Dashboard Data:

LA Nightlight Image

LA NO2 Image

LA Recovery Proxy

External Data:

CalEnviroScreen 3.0/4.0 (https://calenviroscreen-oehha.hub.arcgis.com/#Data)

Utilized the data of:

Population Characteristics Scores

Housing Burden

Poverty Rate

Unemployment Rate

Drinking Water Contamination

Pollution Burden

PM 2.5 Release

Asthma Rate

Low Birth Rate

Traffic

OpenStreetMap (https://www.openstreetmap.org)

Utilized information about LA on the following amenities:

School

Healthcare

Police

Supermarket

Public Transportation

Fuel

Supplenmental Article(s) and Website(s):

Henderson, J. V., Storeygard, A., & Weil, D. (2009). Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space. https://doi.org/10.3386/w15199.

COVID-19 Guidances - LA County Department of Public Health (http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/coronavirus/guidances.htm)

COVID-19: Keeping Los Angeles Safe (https://coronavirus.lacity.org/)

Confronting COVID-19: LA County Responds (https://covid19.lacounty.gov/)

#EnvironmentalJustice #Vulnerablility #LosAngeles #LA #CaseStudies #Community

This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.