DOI: 10.3886/e199302
title: S2E California Coast Environmental Justice Conflicts Database

description: The California Coast Environmental Justice Conflicts Database comprehensively catalogues environmental justice (EJ) conflicts occurring within California's 19 coastal and San Francisco Bay Area counties. This database documents where EJ conflicts occur, what natural resources are involved, what communities are impacted, which EJ organizations/ advocates engage in these conflicts, what industry and government actors are involved, what strategies both EJ advocates and industry actors employ in the conflicts, and how conflicts are portrayed in media. The database was built following a participatory and mixed-methods approach involving key informant interviews to inform database design, followed by systematic web-scraping and content analysis of media coverage and key policy documents on EJ conflicts.<br><br>The database is available as an interactive spatial database on an ArcGIS Online website as well. This spatial database also incorporates 3rd-party socio-spatial data from the U.S. EPA EJSCREEN, California EPA CalEnviroScreen4.0, and U.S. Census to provide the social and spatial context in which conflicts occur. Explore the spatial database at: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/25fcb324e8694b28a0e90c03bbe4ce12/page/Home/#data_s=id%3Adat...<br><br>This effort builds off of on-going work by the Science-to-Empower (S2E) collaborative research team, which focuses on EJ research that empowers communities experiencing environmental injustices by building access and capacity to leverage scientific resources, including researchers and datasets. For more information on S2E, see: https://www.science2empower.org/<br><br><br><br><br>
description: EJ conflicts were identified following a mixed-methods approach, including reviewing published and grey literature, archival review, key informant interviews with EJ activists and EJ program staff at state government agencies and systematic web-scraping. <br><br>To systematically web-scrape, each coastal and Bay Area county in California was searched alongside 17 key conflict type search terms, for a total of 323 individual searches using Google Search engine between 2020-2022 (search terms listed below). The research team then researched each conflict identified in greater depth, reviewing available secondary data sources (i.e. media coverage, project permits, hearings, decisions, policy briefs, scientific research, legal documents, EJ organizations’ websites) and coded each conflict according to a developed codebook to document: <br>Case name Basic informationLocation*Description of conflictStart and end dateResource driving conflictSpecific commodities or resources involved in or driving conflictActors involvedEJ groupsGovernment agenciesPrivate industryStrategiesEJ mobilization/ resistance strategiesExtraction strategiesImpacts and outcomesEnvironmental, socio-economic & health impacts on communityStatus of conflict (closed or ongoing)Conflict outcome(s)EJ “success” or notInformation resources on conflict Technical or legal briefsPolicy documents/ public commentsScientific resourcesMedia coverage*Note: a few cases occur across multiple discrete locations; in the database, these cases with multiple discrete locations will be repeated in multiple rows (identifiable by the same case ID); this allows for easier mapping and spatial analysis of the data.<br><br><b>Web search terms: </b><br>CA counties: <br>Del Norte, Humboldt, Mendocino, Marin, Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego<br><br>Conflict terms: <br>Environmental Justice, Fossil fuel, Oil, Fisheries, Fracking, Sea level rise, Air quality, Refineries, Coastal recreation access, Land dispossession, Land conflicts, Tribal/ indigenous, Water quality, Water supply/ availability, Water affordability, Ports (e.g. pollution, infrastructure, traffic, noise), Harmful algal blooms <br><br><b>Timeframe of sampling and data collection: </b><br>Conflicts actively unfolding during the research process (2020-2022) were checked for latest updates or any changes in decisions or outcomes as of summer 2022. After the initial dataset was compiled, coded, and organized, EJ organizations were approached and invited to provide expert review.<br><br><br>
description: The unit of analysis for our database is an “EJ conflict”. We sought to identify and document as many EJ conflicts occurring in California coastal counties as we could.  We define EJ conflict following a set of criteria modified from Temper et al. (2015):Conflict emerges from an activity (e.g. development, resource extraction, regulation, accident) that has the potential to or has already caused negative social or environmental impacts to a specific community or population; andEJ organizations or community members claim negative impacts from the activity and are actively involved in the conflict in various forms of mobilization; andThe conflict involves at least two identifiable opposing actors or parties involved; andA specific location and timeframe can be associated with the conflict; andThe conflict is documented or reported in publicly available online sources.For more information, see: Temper, Leah, Daniela Del Bene, and Joan Martinez-Alier. “Mapping the frontiers and front lines of global environmental justice: the EJAtlas.” Journal of Political Ecology 22 (2015): 255-278.<br>. Smallest Geographic Unit: Latitude/ longitude of conflict location; Census tracts where conflicts occur
description: other; web scraping;