New Tool Provides Insight into Coastal Community Well-Being

Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Mollie Ginther

NOAA Fisheries is working to integrate equity and environmental justice into all we do. Gaining a better understanding of the people who rely on fisheries in the United States has never been more important.

NOAA Fisheries social scientists have launched the new Community Environmental Justice Explorerweb tool. It describes environmental justice concerns for nearly 5,000 coastal communities in the United States. By visualizing indicators, such as fishing dependence, gentrification pressure, and poverty, this tool creates a dashboard to explore and compare the different pressures coastal communities can face.

This web tool helps managers, researchers, and the public understand environmental justice concerns. One future user, Corey Ridings, who represents the open California Seat of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, shares her perspective: "Equitable and just U.S. fisheries require a transparent understanding and knowledge of who is benefiting from our ocean. Tools such as the Community Environmental Justice Explorer can help us get there by supporting communities in educating themselves, participating in decision-making, and holding their government accountable."

A view of the Community Environmental Justice Explorer tool.

Among the nearly 5,000 coastal communities identified in the tool, more than 650 communities are engaged in or reliant on commercial fishing in a "medium to high" capacity. Commercial fishing activities are integral to how these communities function and experience day-to-day life. These communities face environmental justice concerns at the same or higher rates than other coastal communities:

• 39 percenthave population compositions that have historically had more environmental justice concerns (the same as in other coastal communities)
• 49 percentexperience more poverty (compared to 32 percent of other coastal communities)
• 48 percentexperience more personal disruptions (compared to 36 percent of other coastal communities)

The tool supports our ongoing social indicatorsefforts and the U.S. Ocean Justice Strategy. It helps to address the goals of NOAA Fisheries' Equity and Environmental Justice Strategy. It also supports mandated environmental justice analyses and assessments related to social impact, environmental justice, ecosystem-based fisheries management, natural disasters, and climate change.

The new tool's capabilities build upon and complement the Community Social Vulnerability Indicators Tool, especially in supporting environmental justice analysis.