Actionable and Accessible Data
Resources and Tools for Protecting Our Environment and Public Health
We improve data accessibility and the ability to make decisions for identifying and protecting overburdened communities. We are committed to building lasting forms of protection from environmental burdens and to help build future climate resilience.
Did You Know?
What Drives Us
Data can support and accelerate environmental justice work by validating the disproportionate harms that some communities suffer because they lack clean air, access to safe drinking water and green spaces, and protections from environmental hazards and pollution. Data provides evidence for people’s lived experiences, which is often called their “ground-truth.” It is a way to connect potentially harmful impacts to human health to these environmental burdens.
We support initiatives to empower community engagement and government action through the use of best-available data to overcome issues of environmental injustice.
Our Way Forward
Many environmental and climate justice communities go unrecognized—and thus, unprotected. We ground our work these key workstreams:
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Advocating for the development of policies and tools that can (1) inform where projects are being considered for permits, (2) identify the discrete and cumulative environmental harms associated with those projects, and (3) support overburdened communities with technical assistance and resources to receive government investments to mitigate or address environmental burdens in their watersheds.
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Advancing the creation of a robust digital infrastructure to track funding at the federal, state, and local levels and to follow these investments from the grants to the ground so that we can better understand how these investments can be used to improve communities and reduce future harms.
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Designing tools that help people across the nation understand their drinking water, protect their wetlands, prepare for wildfires, and take actions in their communities to reduce harms from environmental burdens.
Our Principles
Our Projects
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Environmental Justice Tools Inventory
Currently there are more than forty different tools that were developed for environmental justice initiatives. EPIC developed a Tool Inventory to help funding applicants, advocates, policy makers, researchers, educators, and developers navigate this landscape. This resource can help you find the most appropriate tool for your use cases, better understand the burdens in your communities, and recognize where opportunities for collaboration and improvement exist.
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Public Environmental Data Partners
The Public Environmental Data Partners (PEDP) is a coalition of environmentally focused policy, technology, and data organizations and individuals who came together to archive, preserve, republish, and reuse federal datasets and tools after they were taken offline. EPIC collaborates with the group to ensure that key environmental tools remain available for people who use them to understand potential environmental, climate, and socioeconomic burdens in communities across our nation.
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Wetlands Impact Tracker: Revealing Public Notices for Public Good
We collaborated with Atlas Public Policy to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to extract data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ public notices to make it easier for agencies, advocates, and developers to see where projects were being sited and more readily engage with the planning process. Because we collate the information automatically, our dashboard is able to follow federal permitting developments and their impacts on sensitive lands and waters along the Gulf Coast.
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Texas Community Water System Prioritization Tool
Utilities work to deliver quality water, low rates, and financial stability, all while staying within regulatory compliance, but this balancing act can be difficult. We developed an application to help prioritize advocacy and technical assistance for community water systems in Texas. Because the tool lets you visualize multiple variables at once, people are able to see, for example, areas with water quality violations and high concentrations of populations with lower incomes.
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Closing the Gap for Faster Water Infrastructure Investment
Without intervention, there’s a risk that small and under-resourced communities will continue to struggle to access federal and state financing for water, further widening access gaps and water infrastructure disparities. We strive to accelerate access to financing and address unnecessary hurdles and other persistent barriers that hinder progress in public health, environmental protection, and economic prosperity.
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MapMatch: Spatial Resources for Environmental Justice & Conservation
In partnership with Defenders of Wildlife, EPIC participated in convenings and joint research activities with leaders in the environmental and justice data space. Our goal was to develop a values-driven framework for selecting spatial data to advance biodiversity and environmental justice. MapMatch bridges the gap between these often distinct but overlapping domains by showing data pathways to highlight the intersection between them
