Yves Schaeffer, Chercheur en Economie spatiale et écologique, INRAE - LESSEM

Le séminaire GAEL du 26 septembre 2024 a lieu à 14 heures et est animé par Yves Schaeffer, Chercheur INRAE en Economie spatiale et écologique au laboratoire Econsystèmes et Sociétés en montagnes, LESSEM, dont il est Directeur adjoint.

Ses thèmes de recherche :

• Inégalités spatiales socioéconomiques et environnementales
• Géographie économique et biodiversité
   

Titre de sa présentation : De la ségrégation spatiale aux inégalités environnementales, article co-écrit avec Mihai Tivadar.

Résumé : The between-group spatial environmental inequalities arise from the fact that social groups are spatially distributed differently relative to an environmental variable (such as natural amenities or environmental hazards). Intuitively, when members of two groups have similar spatial distributions, environmental inequalities should be nonexistent. Thus, segregation and environmental inequalities are phenomena linked by a key variable: space. Despite this strong connection, the number of studies interested in the association between spatial segregation and spatial environmental inequality is small, and a formal demonstration of the links between these phenomena is missing.
Environmental inequalities may occur between individuals (also called vertical inequalities) and between social groups (horizontal or between-group inequalities) (Boyce et al., 2016). In the case of horizontal spatial environmental inequalities, they arise from the fact that social groups are distributed differently in space relative to an environmental variable. On a methodological level, existing studies are mainly based on between-group comparisons of means or medians, bivariate correlations, and multivariate regressions, and no conceptual and mathematical connection is made between spatial segregation metrics and the measurement of environmental inequalities.
In a recent work, Schaeffer and Tivadar (2019) proposed a structured methodology to measure horizontal spatial environmental inequalities using indices from residential segregation literature. The authors adapted two types of segregation indices for environmental inequalities measurement. First, they based their analysis on spatial dissimilarity for the examination of areal-level environmental data, such as vegetation cover or pollution loads in census blocks. Second, they employed relative centralization for the analysis of multiple points environmental data, such as geocoded hazardous sites or urban parks. However, a formal description of the connections between segregation and environmental inequalities is still missing.
In this article, we demonstrate mathematically that spatial environmental inequalities and spatial segregations are linked: the level of environmental inequalities is bounded by the level of segregation. Put differently, social segregation is a necessary but insufficient condition for environmental inequalities: if the segregation level is low, inequalities will also be low, and with high levels of segregation, the inequalities can be high as well (but not necessarily).
To verify these results, we conduct an empirical analysis of the relationship between the two phenomena in French urban areas. First, we analyse the pattern of environmental inequalities for poor households in French urban areas and test whether there is a strong relationship between segregation and environmental inequalities, and whether there are any significant differences between types of urban areas.

Le séminaire a lieu à 14h00 en salle 227.