A Quantitative Environmental Justice Analysis in Yokohama, Japan : Relationship between Social Indicators and Environmental Quality

In comparison with the US and other countries, there is inadequate literature of quantitative analysis on matters of environmental justice in Japan.By conducting a case study on Yokohama, this research statistically investigated the spatial relationship between the sociodemographic characteristics of population and three environmental qualities: proximity to hazardous industrial waste management facilities (i.e.special control industrial waste management facilities), air pollution exposure, and accessibility to public elementary schools.The results show that higher percentages of blue collar workers (a poverty indicator) were positively related to the proximity to the waste facilities, whereas the percentage of professional and managerial workers (an affluence indicator) decreased with the proximity to the facilities.Communities with more pensioners were likely to be further away from the waste facilities, whereas the percentage of children under 15 years increased with the proximity to the facilities.These results were consistent with the findings of research from the other countries.However, disparities of significant magnitude were not observed for air pollution exposure and school accessibility.This research can be one first step for quantitative environmental justice analyses in Japan.