Exploring Inequities in Access to Public and Private Coastal Infrastructure in South Carolina, United States

“Water access infrastructure” (WAI), such as public or privately-owned structures like piers, marinas, docks, and boat landings, facilitate water access in coastal communities.  However, the placement and distribution of WAI has social and ecological considerations that may create unequal water access across communities. In this study, water access is defined as the ability to physically enter the marine environment, which greatly impacts how people interact with marine environments and harvest seafood.

CEID’s James Byers worked with a research team to explore the distribution of public and private WAI in South Carolina when considering the factors of race and income and used an environmental justice framework, a movement to address the inequities in environmental benefits and burdens on certain racial groups. 

Six coastal counties in southeastern South Carolina were selected for study that are economically and racially diverse, making them ideal for analysis. The final study area included 573 census block groups (CBGs), which are smaller geographic units of census tracts, and these areas were divided into “Marsh”, “Interior”, “Beach”, and “Freshwater” zones. 

The four main study objectives were to: 1) quantify and visualize public and private WAI density across the 573 CBGs 2) analyze the likelihood of the 283 Freshwater, Beach, and Marsh zone CBGs to contain any public WAI in relation to racial and economic composition 3) examine the distance to the closest public WAI in the 283 CBGs of Freshwater, Beach, and Marsh zones and 4) analyze the private WAI abundance across the 187 Marsh zone CBGs in relation to racial and economic composition. 

Across the 573 CBGs, 11,953 private docks, 43 public piers, and 124 public boat landings were present. A total of 969,129 people were included in this study with a racial make-up of 67.5% White, 22.9% Black, 6.4% Latinx, 1.1% Asian, and less than 1% Pacific Islander, American Indian, or another race. Utilizing large-scale spatial assessments, results showed that census block groups with lower income were more likely to contain public WAI, but racial make-up had no significant effect. An opposing trend was detected for private docks, with a positive correlation between dock abundance and higher percentage of White residents, but income was not found to have a significant effect for private docks. 

These results highlight the importance of further research in WAI distribution and accessibility. Factors influencing WAI placement, processes that produce environmental injustices, and how communities experience these injustices are topics in need of further exploration. 

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By: Brenna Daly