Air Quality Impacts of Fracking
and Environmental Justice

Research Study #2: Inequity of exposure to unconventional natural gas development in northeastern British Columbia, Canada –
an environmental justice analysis

  • Resource extraction can result in inequitable distributions of environmental hazards. 
  • This study explores possible disproportionate exposures to oil and gas-related hazards in an area of intensive hydraulic fracturing. 
  • We use census data to compare impacts to Indigenous population and areas of high socio-economic vulnerability. 

Key Findings

  1. We found that DAs with greater than 90% Indigenous population experience 1.2 to 1.8 times higher air pollution than DAs with less than 10% Indigenous population.
Comparison of air pollution concentrations in dissemination areas with less than 10% Indigenous population to concentrations in dissemination areas with greater than 90% Indigenous population in northeastern British Columbia from 2018 to 2020
  1. We find that as an area’s socio-economic vulnerability increases, modelled concentrations of air pollutants, some facility emissions and counts of active hydraulically fractured wells also increase. 
Spearman correlations between exposures to oil and gas-related hazards and rural community vulnerability index quintiles in northeastern British Columbia
  1. The most vulnerable areas, defined by a composite rural community vulnerability index, experience 11 to 96 times higher air pollution concentrations than the least vulnerable areas. 
Distributions of modelled air pollution concentrations for dissemination areas in the first quintile (least vulnerable) and fifth quintile (most vulnerable) of the community vulnerability index in northeastern British Columbia

Please refer to the Environmental Pollution paper “Modelling spatial & temporal variability of air pollution in an area of unconventional natural gas operations” for more details on the modelled air pollution concentrations. Stay tuned for our future publication on this environmental justice work.