This article advances an environmental-sociological and quantitative spatial-analytic approach to the study of environmental inequality formation in coal country. We use spatial error regression models in a case study of 2000 census block group proximity to hazardous coal waste impoundments amidst shifting coal production trajectories and impoundment disaster contexts in the declining Eastern Kentucky coalfields. Proximity to abandoned and sealed mines, coal production density, and the "buffering effect" of rural-agricultural context are the most powerful predictors of impoundment proximity in the period encapsulating the boom years of coal production and culminating in 2000. Amidst continued coal industry decline and the post-2000 Martin County impoundment disaster context, proximity to older impoundments, including the failed Martin County impoundment, proximity to abandoned and sealed mines, and poverty levels by 2000 are the most powerful predictors of proximity to impoundments sited from 2001 to 2006. Findings have important environmental justice research and policy implications.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 8. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 May 2024.
All research outputs
#5,019,163
of 26,832,738 outputs
Outputs from Social Science Research
#559
of 1,450 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#86,649
of 348,297 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Social Science Research
#9
of 24 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 26,832,738 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 81st percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,450 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 20.9. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 61% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 348,297 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 24 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 62% of its contemporaries.
