Environmental Justice & Climate Change in Wichita, Kansas

The City of Wichita and the NASA DEVELOP Wichita Climate team are excited to present this resource for residents, planners, and community organizations to visualize the way that heat will impact Wichita and to explore the relationship between heat, trees, and environmental justice. 

Heat risk is deeply connected with environmental justice because the effects of climate change are not evenly distributed and impact different parts of the population in unique ways. Heat risk is a combination of heat exposure (which areas are hotter) and heat vulnerability (which populations are most likely to suffer negative impacts from heat). Previous research has found that vulnerable communities (which can be defined by factors including race, income, age, sexual orientation, gender, education-level, country of birth) are often faced with the worst effects of climate change.

As a concept, environmental justice addresses the inequitable distribution of environmental benefits and negative impacts. In action, it calls for meaningful engagement with those most impacted.  

The City of Wichita is in the process of developing its Climate Adaptation and Mitigation Plan to make the city more resilient to the effects of climate change and dedicate resources to vulnerable communities.  We envision a future where Wichita balances economic vitality and environmental quality. To do so, we will need to ensure that the burdens of extreme heat and the benefits of tree canopy are distributed equitably across Wichita.

Heat exposure can exacerbate any pre-existing health conditions and can have a number of negative health consequences, including death. It can negatively affect reproduction, work capacity, cognitive processing, and mental health. Long-term health consequences of chronic heat exposure include damage to the heart, blood, stomach, and intestines. Exposure to extreme heat creates a substantial financial burden on healthcare systems, one that is felt most heavily by women, the elderly, low-income families, and minority groups.

A common strategy to decrease urban heat risk is planting trees. Increased canopy cover allows for greater shade, improved air quality, and heat mitigation. It also can reduce electricity bills and energy demands on the city. Despite these benefits, the city of Wichita has experienced a decrease in urban canopy cover over the past five years due to factors including urbanization and tree die-off. To develop and implement climate mitigation strategies, urban tree planting efforts will be essential for combatting extreme urban heat and equitably rebuilding tree canopy loss. 

By identifying urban tree canopy in Wichita, we can better identify which neighborhoods are in need of tree planting efforts. Providing data to adequately determine priority areas leads to efficient use of time, funding, and tree planting efforts.

When extreme heat hits, not everyone suffers the same consequences. For example, someone in a hot area might have access to air conditioning, while another person might have a limited electricity budget to cool their home or an underlying health condition that worsens with heat. Vulnerability describes how negative consequences can vary.

To estimate vulnerability we used the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Social Vulnerability Index. The index combines census data on socioeconomic status, household composition and disability, minority status and language, and housing type and transportation to assign a vulnerability score from 0-1 for each census tract. We also looked at data from the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, which identifies disadvantaged census tracts based on environmental and climate indicators as well as socioeconomic status.

Vulnerability is high in central Wichita and lowest on the western and eastern edges of the city. To view more details on vulnerability, including health, income, and racial demographics click on a census tract in the vulnerability map.

To define priority areas, we combined heat exposure (which areas are hotter) and vulnerability (which populations are most likely to suffer negative impacts from heat) into a heat risk score. We identified 17 high risk census tracts, which experience the highest average temperature and are extremely socially vulnerable. These census tracts mostly circle the city center. Of those, 82% are also identified as environmentally disadvantaged by Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool, meaning projects in these areas are eligible to contribute to Justice40 goals of providing 40% of the benefits from Federal programs to disadvantaged communities. You can explore this further in Figure 6, below.

We also created a risk score based on three variables: % low-income, % non-white, and % above age 65. Based on analysis, we found that income has the most significant relationship with heat risk. Lower-income communities face higher heat risk. Figure 7 shows these relationships further.

Using high resolution satillite imagery allows estimates of surface temperature and tree canopy cover to expand beyond city level estimates. By analyzing differences at the block group level, it is evident that the impacts of extreme heat are not felt equally among different communities. Many vulnerable communities have been shaped by historic housing policies and zoning practices, dating back a number of decades.

In the 1930s, certain communities were denied homeownership loans in a practice that is known today as "redlining". The Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) created maps that designated which areas were most desirable, basing this decision on socioeconomic factors like race. The inequities brought about by this policy continue to impact vulnerable communities today. Below is a map of historically redlined neighborhoods in Wichita compared to socially vulnerable areas in Wichita that have high heat exposure today. It is evident that historically redlined communities in Wichita are now facing problems of heat burden and injustice.

Additionally, historically unequal distribution of resources means that many vulnerable communities are further from public green space or recreational areas. Access to green space is an essential component of heat mitigation and public health.

City officials and residents can use this StoryMap to inform their mitigation practices and reduce heat risk through targeted interventions. Actions that can help reduce heat risk include increased tree planting efforts, educational campaigns on preventing heat-related illness, and availability of cooling centers. 

Furthermore, the dangers of extreme heat can impact individuals during a commute to work or school and during hot work days in outdoor environments. Heat mitigation efforts must support vulnerable populations in both indoor and outdoor spaces.

Even though initiatives and policies to increase tree canopy coverage can help mitigate extreme heat effects on communities in Wichita, city officials and community leaders will have the complex job of assessing all potential outcomes from these actions. Green gentrification occurs when environmental greening leads to increased property values and often pushes out lower-income residents the policies were aimed to benefit.

The principles of environmental justice underlying this StoryMap speak to the importance of community engagement, equality of voices, responsible use of land, and respect for the sovereignty of Native Peoples, among others. These maps serve as a starting point for city officials and community leaders to equitably increase tree canopy cover and inform other heat mitigation practices.

We would like to thank a number of individuals who helped with the creation of this Story Map and other components of our reserach and analysis.

• Partner - Nina Rasmussen (City of Wichita)
• Science Advisors - Dr. Kenton Ross and Lauren Childs-Gleason (NASA Langley Research Center)
• Fellow - Marco Vallejos (NASA DEVELOP)
• Assistant Fellow - Remi Work (NASA DEVELOP)

The DEVELOP team would like to acknowledge that our engagement with the whole Wichita community was limited to the City of Wichita. In future continuations of this project, we hope that we can engage more members of the community to make this research widely applicable and more locally accurate.

1.       City of Wichita Local Government Page , for government related information, resources, and information

2.       City of Wichita GIS , a source of public geospatial information about Wichita

3.       WSU: Environmental Justice 101  , an intro to environmental justice course description and information from Wichita State University

4.       Sunrise Wichita,  a youth-led movement working on climate justice, economic vitality, and building up locally 

5.       Kansas Youth for Climate Justice , a youth-led movement in Kansas fighting for intersectional climate justice 

6.       Canopy ICT,   a community-based group working towards increasing Wichita’s tree canopy 

7.     Wichita Beacon's  report  on unpaved roads  

8.       EJScreen , the EPA's environmental justice screening and mapping tool 

9.   Climate & Economic Justice  screening tool 

10.  Public GIS Resources  for Kansas

Please reach out to Brooke Laird by email at brookelaird10@gmail.com if you have additional resources that you would like us to share regarding environmental justice, urban heat, tree canopy, climate issues, or mapping resources.