Hispanic and or Black, Indigenous or People of Color (Hspbipoc) Population Concentration - Central CA

Relative concentration of the Central California region's Hispanic and/or Black, Indigenous or person of color (HSPBIPOC) American population. The variable HSPBIPOC is equivalent to all individuals who select a combination of racial and ethnic identity in response to the Census questionnaire EXCEPT those who select "not Hispanic" for the ethnic identity question, and "white race alone" for the racial identity question. This is the most encompassing possible definition of racial and ethnic identities that may be associated with historic underservice by agencies, or be more likely to express environmental justice concerns (as compared to predominantly non-Hispanic white communities). Until 2021, federal agency guidance for considering environmental justice impacts of proposed actions focused on how the actions affected "racial or ethnic minorities." "Racial minority" is an increasingly meaningless concept in the USA, and particularly so in California, where only about 3/8 of the state's population identifies as non-Hispanic and white race alone - a clear majority of Californians identify as Hispanic and/or not white. Because many federal and state map screening tools continue to rely on "minority population" as an indicator for flagging potentially vulnerable / disadvantaged/ underserved populations, our analysis includes the variable HSPBIPOC which is effectively "all minority" population according to the now outdated federal environmental justice direction. A more meaningful analysis for the potential impact of forest management actions on specific populations considers racial or ethnic populations individually: e.g., all people identifying as Hispanic regardless of race; all people identifying as American Indian, regardless of Hispanic ethnicity; etc.

"Relative concentration" is a measure that compares the proportion of population within each Census block group data unit that identify as HSPBIPOC alone to the proportion of all people that live within the 4,961 block groups in the Central California RRK region that identify as HSPBIPOC alone. Example: if 5.2% of people in a block group identify as HSPBIPOC, the block group has twice the proportion of HSPBIPOC individuals compared to the Central California RRK region (2.6%), and more than three times the proportion compared to the entire state of California (1.6%). If the local proportion is twice the regional proportion, then HSPBIPOC individuals are highly concentrated locally.

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Additional Info

Field Value
Last Updated February 28, 2025, 07:38 (UTC)
Created February 28, 2025, 07:38 (UTC)
category /Social and Cultural Well-Being/Equitable Opportunity/Hispanic and or Black, Indigenous Or People of Color (HSPBIPOC) Population Concentration
collection_name California Landscape Metrics
creation_method Data reporting units are Census block groups. Standard block groups are clusters of Census blocks within the same census tract that have the same first digit of their 4-character census block number (e.g., Blocks 3001, 3002, 3003 to 3999 in census tract 1210.02 belong to block group 3). Block groups delineated for the 2020 Census generally contain 600 to 3,000 people. Census blocks are statistical areas bounded on all sides by visible features (e.g., streets, roads, streams, and railroad tracks), and by non-visible boundaries (e.g., city, town, township, county limits, and short line-of-sight extensions of streets and roads). Census blocks in suburban and rural areas may be large, irregular, and bounded by a variety of features (e.g., roads, streams, and/or transmission line rights-of-way). In remote areas, census blocks may encompass hundreds of square miles. Census blocks cover all territory in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Island areas. Blocks do not cross the boundaries of any entity for which the Census Bureau tabulates data. See note 1. Data describing concentrations of population characteristics that are potentially related to environmental justice issues were provided to CWI through a collaboration with the USDA Forest Service, Geospatial Technology and Applications Center. The concentration methodology was created by GTAC for social science analysis applications within the Forest Service; it is based on research published in 2018 and 2020 (See Note 2). Data were compiled and prepared for incorporating in the Task Force regions by Mark Adams, Geographer, USFS-GTAC. For more information, contact: [mark.adams1@usda.gov](mailto:mark.adams1@usda.gov). Note; 1) The pixels attributed with a categorical data unit describing the relative concentration of HSPBIPOC population are derived from a vector polygon feature that has been modified as follows: Census block groups from the Census Bureau's TIGER/Line geodatabase features for 2021 are selected based on their spatial intersection with the Central California RRK boundary. The resulting 4,961 block group features are modified by first erasing from the feature the area of all constituent Census blocks which have neither housing nor population recorded in the PL-94171 Redistricting dataset for 2020. In a second step, areas of federal and state public lands on which housing by definition is not located are erased from the interim feature. The result is a block group feature that depicts to the maximum practicable extent the areas within the block group where people that are represented by the Census Bureau's Census count could actually be residing. It is this modified block group feature that has been rasterized to match the 30m pixel grid that all biophysical datasets are reported in. References for the concentration levels analysis: Adams, Mark D. O. and S. Charnley. 2020. The Environmental Justice Implications of Managing Hazardous Fuels on Federal Forest Lands, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 110:6, 1907-1935, DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2020.1727307 Adams, Mark D. O. and S. Charnley. 2018. Environmental justice and U.S. Forest Service hazardous fuels reduction: A spatial method for impact assessment of federal resource management actions. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2017.12.014 Data were derived from the 2020 Census Total population for the block group from the redistricting file (PL 94-171) of the 2020 Census, released summer 2021. The raw data were obtained directly from the Census Bureau data set table named in "Origin"; all data sets downloaded from census.data.gov and joined to TIGER Census block group features. There are 4,961 Census block groups within or intersecting the Central California RRK region boundary.
data_resolution 30m Raster
data_units Categorical
data_vintage 2020
element Equitable Opportunity
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file_name CenCal_HSPBIPOC_2020_202312_T2_v5
format GeoTiff
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harvest_source_id a2637971-af12-457f-ae4a-831d2202a539
harvest_source_title WIFIRE Commons
maximum_value 5.0
metric_definition_and_relevance Relative concentration of the Central California region's Hispanic and/or Black, Indigenous or person of color (HSPBIPOC) American population. The variable HSPBIPOC is equivalent to all individuals who select a combination of racial and ethnic identity in response to the Census questionnaire EXCEPT those who select "not Hispanic" for the ethnic identity question, and "white race alone" for the racial identity question. This is the most encompassing possible definition of racial and ethnic identities that may be associated with historic underservice by agencies, or be more likely to express environmental justice concerns (as compared to predominantly non-Hispanic white communities). Until 2021, federal agency guidance for considering environmental justice impacts of proposed actions focused on how the actions affected "racial or ethnic minorities." "Racial minority" is an increasingly meaningless concept in the USA, and particularly so in California, where only about 3/8 of the state's population identifies as non-Hispanic and white race alone - a clear majority of Californians identify as Hispanic and/or not white. Because many federal and state map screening tools continue to rely on "minority population" as an indicator for flagging potentially vulnerable / disadvantaged/ underserved populations, our analysis includes the variable HSPBIPOC which is effectively "all minority" population according to the now outdated federal environmental justice direction. A more meaningful analysis for the potential impact of forest management actions on specific populations considers racial or ethnic populations individually: e.g., all people identifying as Hispanic regardless of race; all people identifying as American Indian, regardless of Hispanic ethnicity; etc. "Relative concentration" is a measure that compares the proportion of population within each Census block group data unit that identify as HSPBIPOC alone to the proportion of all people that live within the 4,961 block groups in the Central California RRK region that identify as HSPBIPOC alone. Example: if 5.2% of people in a block group identify as HSPBIPOC, the block group has twice the proportion of HSPBIPOC individuals compared to the Central California RRK region (2.6%), and more than three times the proportion compared to the entire state of California (1.6%). If the local proportion is twice the regional proportion, then HSPBIPOC individuals are highly concentrated locally.
minimum_value 1.0
pillar Social and Cultural Well-Being
spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[-123.0464753795284, 34.81949411991025], [-119.2971083717256, 34.81949411991025], [-119.2971083717256, 38.39206562098733], [-123.0464753795284, 38.39206562098733], [-123.0464753795284, 34.81949411991025]]]}
sub_element Hispanic and or Black, Indigenous Or People of Color (HSPBIPOC) Population Concentration
tier 2