Shivani Manivasagan, Kai Rieffel, Subi Lumala
November 2023 - December 2023
This project provides a comprehensive tutorial on overlaying pollution burden scores and median income data on a map of California. The goal is to identify census tracts that are disproportionately affected by pollution. We use pandas, geopandas, matplotlib, and numpy to plot the data on a map, using shapefiles containing census tract geometry. This tutorial guides users through each step of the process (importing datasets, preprocessing/merging data, making visualizations), making it accessible for those new to geospatial analysis.
CalEnviroScreen is an online tool created by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. It allows users to visualize various environmental parameters by census tract on a map of California. The dataset contains multiple parameters; we focus on the Pollution Burden Score, which measures the overall pollution exposure of a tract.
The US Census Bureau collects data for census tracts across the United States on various parameters, such as race, commute time, and income. For this project, we use the 2022 5-year estimates for median household income, which aggregate data collected from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2022, for each California census tract.