Environmental Justice and the Allocation Of Risk: The Case of Lead and Public Health

This paper examines conceptual and methodological issues in the analysis of environmental justice through use of the case of lead-exposure health risks. Researchers face important obstacles in measuring variable risks among population subgroups. The case of lead exposure, however, illustrates the dramatic potential where adequate data exist for identifying and correcting significant inequities in risk exposure. Despite sharp reductions in the general population's exposure to lead since the 1970s, substantial numbers of minority and low-income children continue to exhibit unacceptably high blood-lead levels due primarily to exposure to lead-based paint. Resolving environmental inequities in this and similar instances requires solid documentation of the risk and better integration of equity issues with other policy demands such as the call for cost-effective environmental policy.     

Modeling and Prediction of Long-Distance Traffic Flows Through the Example of Road Transport in the Czech Republic

The construction of large-scale long-distance roads brings an irreversible impact on the landscape and therefore its careful and precise planning is very important. For this planning we use data on the intensity of traffic flows on existing roads and statistical tools for the modeling of planned traffic flows. The main objective of this paper is the modeling of the existing intensity of traffic flows on highways and expressways in the Czech Republic by determination of the optimal distance-decay function. On the basis of the resulting model and the resulting distance-decay function, it is possible to predict the intensity of traffic in the event of the completion and commissioning of new sections of highways and expressways. The subsequent analysis will allow us to make a qualified prediction of traffic intensity in the event of the completion of the R35 expressway, or after the completion of the R35 and R43 expressways. Besides the intensity on the above-mentioned roads themselves, the paper also predicts the expected reduction in traffic intensity on the busiest highway in the Czech Republic, that is, on the D1 highway between Prague and Brno.