Environmental justice research seeks to understand the patterns and processes shaping the distribution of environmental burdens and amenities across society. While environmental justice research in the US has generally focused on toxics, urban design, hazard management, and segregation have reshaped patterns of risk associated with environmental processes, such as flooding, and the social patterns of exposure to those risks. In Baltimore, flood risks have been a major impetus behind the engineering of the hydrologic systems of the city. In this research, we ask whether low-income and/or African-American households are more likely to be located in floodplain areas than affluent and/or white households in Baltimore, Maryland.

Using novel parcel-level dasymetric mapping techniques, long term Census data (1950 – 2000), parcel data, and floodplain boundaries, we examine the distribution and characteristics of households over time in the floodplain areas of Baltimore’s streams and shoreline. For investigations of population change, the dasymetric mapping method offers significant improvement over techniques based on census boundaries. The results from this research reflect important long term household locational dynamics in Baltimore and bear many similarities to earlier environmental justice research focused on TRI sites in Baltimore (Boone 2002).