Environmental Risk and its role in Neighbourhood-Level Income Inequality : Environmental Justice in Dutch mid-sized cities

This thesis examines whether environmental risks such as heat, air pollution and flooding are equally spread across and within cities. In many cases, residents of lower-income neighbourhoods face higher environmental risk exposure. While this has been widely studied in places like the United States, much less is known about how this plays out in the Netherlands. This thesis explores whether and how income differences shape exposure to environmental risks in six Dutch medium-sized cities: Breda, Haarlem, Arnhem, Zwolle, Leiden and Maastricht. Using a spatial justice perspective and neighbourhood-level data, this thesis investigates the relationship between neighbourhood income and three environmental risks: heat stress, flood exposure, and NO₂ pollution. OLS regressions and spatial analysis are used to examine how these risks are distributed across neighbourhoods and how they relate to average standardised household income, alongside other factors like green space, population density and housing tenure. The results show that lower-income areas are more often exposed to heat stress, while no clear or varied link is found between local income level and air pollution and flood risk. The patterns differ between cities, which implies that small-scale contexts are important when examining environmental risk exposure and its relation to income inequality. The study findings add to the literature on environmental justice work in Europe by showing how climate-related risks and income inequality come together in Dutch cities. It points to the importance of including social vulnerability in climate policy and planning at the local level.