In many urban areas, residential wood burning is a significant wintertime source of PM2.5. In this study, we used a combination of fixed and mobile monitoring along with a novel spatial buffering procedure to estimate the spatial patterns of woodsmoke. Two-week average PM2.5 and levoglucosan (a marker for wood smoke) concentrations were concurrently measured at upto seven sites in the study region. In addition, pre-selected routes spanning the major population areas in and around Vancouver, B.C. were traversed during 19 cold, clear winter evenings from November, 2004 to March, 2005 by a vehicle equipped with GPS receiver and a nephelometer. Fifteen-second-average values of light scattering coefficient (bsp) were adjusted for variations between evenings and then combined into a single, highly resolved map of nighttime winter bsp levels. A relatively simple but robust (R(2) = 0.64) land use regression model was developed using selected spatial covariates to predict these temporally adjusted bsp values. The bsp values predicted by this model were also correlated with the measured average levoglucosan concentrations at our fixed site locations (R(2) = 0.66). This model, the first application of land use regression for woodsmoke, enabled the identification and prediction of previously unrecognized high woodsmoke regions within an urban airshed.

This article addresses two questions: (1) How do spatiotemporal changes in air pollution levels-specifically, total suspended particulates (TSP)-rise or fall with socioeconomic status? (2) A critical equity interpretation of environmental policy then motivates this question: does the pursuit of average regional reductions in pollution benefit those who need improvements least, benefit those who need improvements most, or maintain the status quo? TSP data are drawn from networks of monitoring stations operated in 1985, 1990, and 1995. The monitoring data are interpolated with a kriging algorithm to produce estimates of likely pollution distribution throughout Hamilton. Exposure is related to socioeconomic status (SES) variables at the census tract level for corresponding years-1986, 1991, and 1996-and associations are tested with ordinary least squares (OLS) and spatial regression models. The results show that whether TSP rises or falls, injustice persists but becomes less pronounced over time. Among all SES indicators, dwelling value consistently predicts TSP levels for all years, suggestive of a land-rent/ spatial-externalities dynamic. As we move forward in time, it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate airpollution exposure among Hamilton neighborhoods, as industrial TSP sources become more dispersed in the region and transportation pollution becomes relatively more important. We conjecture that more equitable distributions of air pollution have resulted more from post-Fordist industrial and spatial restructuring than from environmental policy intervention. Injustice in Hamilton and its apparent relationship with changing industrial structure appear similar to results in the United States and speak to a continental, intraurban environmental-justice experience.

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Introduction and backgroundThe concept of environmental justice represents the politicized edge of empirical analysis and contested discourse investigating whether socioeconomic position (SEP), race, or both, conditions exposure to environmental health hazards. Environmental justice research takes on a political dimension because the concept infers that not only have the poor and racial minorities been left behind in sharing the benefits of economic development, but that they must also bear a disproportionate burden of costs that arise from the production and consumption sectors. Thus, the justice debate also encompasses issues of fairness in regulatory, planning, and other environmental protection and economic decisions.Research on this topic has advanced furthest in the USA, probably because of the implicit coalition which the justice movement has with broadly based civil rights and racial equality movements. The question of whether race, or SEP, or both, affect exposure and potential exposure permeates the US justice literature. Although some have argued that these questions are unanswerable because race and SEP cannot be disentangled (see Maantay, 2002), the preponderance of evidence in the USA shows that race is associated with exposure öand this conclusion cannot be easily dismissed by scholars or by communities of concern that bear the impacts.In recent years the environmental justice movement has broadened its geographical scope beyond the USA. This has taken many forms, including health concerns over globalization and investment into depressed regions (Westra and Lawson, 2001), and testing whether injustice is present in other developed countries (for example, Jerrett

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