Language Mapping for Outreach on Air Quality

Language Map of Santa Clara County, California
This map is one of a large series created to guide a regional air quality district with its community outreach work.
Client:   Bay Area Air Quality Management District (through consultant Kearns & West)

Air quality impacts are important for everyone's life. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the regional air quality district's consultant was charged with developing maps of where different languages are spoken, to aid the district's outreach effort - and they asked GreenInfo to build a detailed series of maps showing this information.

To help the District with its  Assessment of Limited English Proficient Populations and Current Services, GreenInfo used American Community Survey responses about languages spoken to identify the top five non-English languages of each of the region's nine counties where the Limited English Proficiency (LEP) population was greater than 10,000 or 5% of the total.  This data was refined to also show Tracts where over 5% of the population is LEP for a specific language.

A large collection of county language maps were then produced, showing clearly complex information.  The District will use these maps to better understand when interpretation may be needed for the most commonly spoken languages in each area.  The maps are presented in a report on how the District will support public participation.

 

Results: GreenInfo maps support the Air District's plans to better reach Limited English Proficiency populations.

Focus:   Environment, Public Health, Social Justice/Equity  

Services:  GIS Services, Data, Maps 

Tags:   air quality, American Community Survey, Census, Esri ArcGIS, language, San Francisco Bay Area  

Project Years: 2011-2013

GreenInfo Network creates, analyzes, visualizes and communicates information in the public interest. We specialize in mapping and related technology for nonprofits and public agencies, focusing on using it for conservation, social equity, public health, environment and foundation grant making.
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