An Environmental Justice Study of Los Angeles County Elementary Schools and Their Proximities to Liquefaction and Landslide Hazard Areas.

Abstract

My research centers around two separate GIS projects: School Boundary Project and Earthquake Hazards Project. I am compiling a GIS geography database for the School Boundary Project in preparation for environmental justice research. I constructed the attendance boundaries for the elementary schools in Los Angeles County using attendance boundary maps and street indexes obtained from school district offices. There are over 70 school districts and over 1000 elementary schools in LA County. For the Earthquake Hazards Project, I am also compiling a GIS geography database. I'm using hazards maps used for calculating insurance premium and risk provided by the California State Dept. of Conservation to map areas in LA County susceptible to liquefaction and landslides during earthquakes. Once both projects are complete, I will use school demographic data from State archives with the School Boundary data to try to spatially correlate the children's' ethnicity and family income with the proximity of their schools to the earthquake hazards from the Earthquake Hazards Project. My goal is to test whether the locations of the elementary schools relate to the demography or educational attainment of the children who must spend at least 8 hours on campus during school hours.