A new simple method to test and map environmental inequality: Urban hazards disproportionately affect minorities

There is limited research studying geographical disparity of minorities for equitable solutions to urban climate hazards. This study proposes new geographic analytics that is simple and powerful to quantify, identify, test, and map the significance of ethnic disparity in urban hazards. Based on a minority’s relative proportion at a spatial granular unit and its general proportion across a region, location amplitude index (LAI) is defined. A significant LAI indicates abnormal aggregation of a minority at a geographic granular unit potentially experiencing hazards. By comparing a minority’s LAI with the white’s LAI, location amplitude disparity index (LADI) is defined. LADI is used to statistically test the significance of a minority’s disparity at a geographical granular unit. Using the 100-year floodplains in Birmingham, AL as case studies, LAI and LADI quantify and test geographical disparity of the Hispanic in the Valley Creek floodplain, insignificant (p > 0.5), but racial disparity of the black is very significant with p values