Airport Pollution: LAX & Hawthorne

Municipal

By: Ghaleb AttracheUP M206A

Final Project – winter 2011

Project Questions• Is there an increased health risk from living

nearby airports?• What is the racial/ethnic composition of the

area surrounding the two airports?• What percent of the population around the

airports live below the poverty threshold?

What’s new this time around?• 0.75 mi buffer applied to flight path on

most slides to indicate areas where aircraft flight operations have greatest impact

• Looking at age demographics– Under 18 and over 65

• Looking at schools nearby LAX and Hawthorne Municipal to see size of youth population at increased risk of health problems.

# of schools that fall under flight path

Elementary/Nursery Middle High College/University/Academy Adult0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

SCHOOL TYPE nElementary/Nursery 127Middle 42High 26College/University/Academy 14Adult 3TOTAL 212

Schools, pollution, and health risk • For purpose of study, concerned primarily

with elementary/nursery, middle, and high schools because students in these schools are under the age of 18.– Why is this important?

Youth exposure to toxic particles, risk of developing health complications early on in life.

• Focusing on these categories of schools, the number of schools falling under flight path becomes 195.

Schools nearby The Airports

• 3 mi buffer around LAX and 1 mi buffer around Hawthorne Municipal reveal areas near airports where schools are located and where there is the highest risk of developing cancer and respiratory problems.

How many young students are affected?

  School Type # of schools# of

students  

  Elementary/Nursery 19 10,605  

  Middle 13 6,725  

  High 4 3,521  

  Other 2 N/A  

  Total 38 20,851  

   

  Data Source: greatschools.org, trulia.com, LAUSD

What can be done?• Zoning law

Can’t place a school within a 3 mi buffer of a major airport (can be determined by air traffic flow into/out of airport) and within a 1 mi buffer of a smaller airport.

Hotspot Analysis Variables• Median Household Income• Total Health Risk (Cancer +

Respiratory) (0.3)• % of Population <18 and >65 (0.2)• Minorities• Hispanic/Latino• % Below Poverty (0.2)

What’s a possible solution?• Although I don’t have statistics

that tell me how much of the toxic pollution comes from aircrafts – and thus the health risk specifically from aircrafts – if we assume it is even the least bit significant, then an option would be to….

Modeling

Metadata

Skills used/Requirements• Metadata • Modeling • Original data (Flight Paths)• Measurement Analysis - Buffer• Hotspot Analysis• Layout with 7+ layers (Risk, schools, and flight path slide)

– LAX, Hawthorne, LA Highways, Schools, Flight Path, Flight Path Buffer, Health Risk, Census Tracts• Charts/Images• Geoprocessing (clipping)• Boundary sub-sets selection

– Focus area (except for slide 4) derived by selecting relevant tracts from LA County tracts

• Aggregating attribute fields– Minorities and Hispanic Latino

• Creating index– Hazard index respiratory and cancer risk

• Inset Map• Extracting info from buffers

– Extracting info on health risk from flight path buffer for schools slide