NASA Earth science data are available without restriction and are an invaluable resource for exploring Earth’s natural processes. When combined with socioeconomic data about race, ethnicity, poverty, and health, these observations can help better identify vulnerable populations and support environmental justice. Environmental justice refers to the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, in the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.
The NASA Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Program’s Environmental Justice Data Catalog is your guide to datasets that may be useful in environmental justice research. Datasets are organized based on their environmental justice indicator (such as disasters, urban flooding, extreme heat, and food availability) and the possible use cases for each dataset.
For additional information about NASA environmental justice efforts, please see the NASA Earth Science Division (ESD) Equity and Environmental Justice page. ESDS provides many resources for exploring environmental justice and showing how NASA Earth science data can be applied. The new ESDS Visualization, Exploration, Data, and Analysis (VEDA) Dashboard has an interactive Environmental Justice Thematic Area. Other ESDS resources include the report from the Understanding Needs to Broaden Outside Use of NASA Data (UNBOUND)-Environmental Justice workshop and the Environmental Justice and Vulnerability Levels/Index Earthdata topic pages.