Participatory and Spatial Analyses of Environmental Justice Communities’ Concerns about a Proposed Storm Surge and Flood Protection Seawall

Abstract

In response to increasing threats from sea-level rise and storm surge, the City of Charleston, South Carolina, and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) propose constructing a seawall around the Charleston peninsula. The proposed seawall will terminate close to lower wealth, predominantly minority communities. These communities are identified as environmental justice (EJ) communities due to their history of inequitable burdens of industrial and urban pollution and proximity to highways and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated Superfund sites. The present study documents community concerns and opinions related to the proposed seawall, existing flooding problems, and other issues. The project was guided by knowledge co-production and participant-observation approaches and included interviews with community members, collection of locality-specific data, GIS mapping to visualize key issues, development of an ArcGIS Story Map, and participation in public meetings. Community concerns are reported in the voices of community members and fell into eight major themes: community connections, drainage, impacts of road infrastructure, displacement, increasing vulnerability, sense of exclusion and isolation, mistrust of government, and civic engagement. Community members were significantly engaged in the study and are the owners of the results. As one of the first US East Coast cities pursuing major structural adaptation for flooding, Charleston is likely to become a model for other cities considering waterfront protection measures. We demonstrate the importance of meaningful engagement to ensure that climate adaptation will benefit all, including marginalized communities, and have as few unintended negative consequences as possible. Bringing more people to the table and creating vibrant, long-term partnerships between academic institutions and community-based organizations that include robust links to governmental organizations should be among the first steps in building inclusive, equitable, and climate resilient cities.

Linking coastal environmental and health observations for human wellbeing

“…While certainly not all inclusive, this is an exemplar of the kinds of environmental and health information that could be accumulated and linked for human health assessments. In addition to the items listed, information on supporting resources, e.g., health care facilities and services, community food pantries, emergency response, and others also could be included, where possible using interactive geospatial mapping frameworks [for example see ( 35 )]. The proposed elements would go a long way to providing a more comprehensive view of coastal exposures likely to have positive or negative health consequences.…”

“…Further, using community-based participatory or community-engaged research approaches (CBPR or CEnR) ( 155–157 ), members of a particular community could work with one or more community-based organizations (CBOs) and research partners to implement their own health observing system based on monitoring of a selected suite of environmental exposure parameters and collection of health and community data. Approaches involving application of CPBR with inclusion of CBOs have proved effective in dealing with COVID-19, flooding, and climate change concerns ( 35 , 158 , 159 ). In addition, involvement of the public through citizen science efforts related to health can be highly effective ( 160 ).…”

“…Approaches involving application of CPBR with inclusion of CBOs have proved effective in dealing with COVID-19, flooding, and climate change concerns (35,158,159). In addition, involvement of the public through citizen science efforts related to health can be highly effective (160).…”