Issue Area

Cumulative Impacts

Overview

Cumulative impacts occur when multiple sources of pollution and other environmental stressors combine over time to cause adverse effects to human health and wellbeing. These impacts are the result of complex interactions among various social, environmental, and public health factors.  When environmental justice communities call for cumulative impacts legislation it is motivated by the need to decrease and reverse decades of disproportionate impacts on BIPOC, low-income, and limited English proficiency individuals and communities. Cumulative impacts policies can help broaden the narrow focus of past environmental regulations, fill in gaps in knowledge about the public health impacts of multiple pollutants, and provide a more holistic assessment that takes into account socio-demographic and health disparities that affect environmental justice communities.

NCEL Point of Contact
Nabjot Kaur

Environmental Health Program Manager

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Key Facts

Cumulative impacts involve multiple pollutants and there are two types of effects more likely to affect environmental justice communities. An additive effect is when combined impacts are equal to the sum of their individual impacts. A synergistic effect is when combined impacts are greater than the sum of individual impacts.

Counties with higher degrees of racial residential segregation are exposed to higher concentrations of particulate matter. Human-generated particulate metal concentrations (copper, zinc, nickel, chromium, lead) are on average 30–75% higher in highly segregated counties than in moderately segregated counties and 5–20 times higher than in well-integrated counties.

Existing social and economic conditions can be exacerbated by environmental stressors and lead to higher levels of asthma, diabetes, and hypertension for minorities and low-income communities.

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Resources

NCEL Resources

Online Resources

Cumulative Impacts: Why Environmental Protections Need to Take Them into Account (Union of Concerned Scientists)

Explanation and overview of cumulative impacts in federal, state, and municipal contexts.

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The Environmental Justice Index (EJI)

The EJI tool delivers a cumulative impacts score for each Census tract in the continental U.S. The EJI ranks each tract on 36 environmental, health, and social factors called EJI Indicators.

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Cumulative Impacts, Definitions, and Thresholds in the US (The New School)

A searchable tool of definitions, indicators, thresholds, and benefits in the various CI policies developed to date aimed at supporting policymakers.

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