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The Nature Gap' Clean drinking water, clean air, public parks, biodiversity, and open spaces are shared goods to which every person in the United States has an equal right. Nature is supposed to be a "great equalizer" whose services are free, universal, and accessible to all humans without discrimination. In reality, however, American society distributes nature's benefits —and the effects of its destruction and decline —unequally by race, income, and age. Communities of color are three times more likely than white communities to live in nature -deprived places. Seventy-four percent of communities of color in the contiguous United States live in nature -deprived areas, compared with just 23 percent of white communities. Seventy percent of low-income communities across the country live in nature deprived areas. This figure is 20 percent higher than the figure for those with moderate or high incomes. Nature destruction has had the largest impact on low- income communities of color. More than 76 percent of people who live in low-income communities of color live in nature -deprived places. Nature deprivation has consequences. The communities that are shouldering more of the impacts and costs of nature destruction are also receiving less of nature's benefits, including air and water purification, climate mitigation, biodiversity and disease control, and opportunities for leisure and recreation. ' Rowland -Shea, Jenny. The Nature Gap: Confronting Racial and Economic Disparities in the Destruction and Protection of Nature in America, 2020. CALENVIRCISCREEN 4.0 An environmental justice community is an area where residents have the highest risk of exposure to pollution (in the air, water, and soil). Residents in these areas also tend to be burdened by socioeconomic and health issues, such as higher rates of language barriers, poverty, asthma, etc. These areas also tend to experience lower rates of investment and improvements. All of these factors can lead to unequal opportunities. To address the cumulative effects of both pollution burden and population characteristic factors, and to identify which communities might be in need of policy, investment, or programmatic interventions, the City of Santa Ana as part of their General Plan used a mapping tool from CalEPA (CalEnviroScreen, Version 4.0) to identify the most vulnerable and disadvantaged areas. The CES tool measures 21 indicators for every census tract in California. The results for each census tract are combined and measured against every other census tract, producing a composite score that ranks census tracts from the least impacted to the most impacted. Those ranked in the top 25 percent —with values between 75 and 100 percent —are considered disadvantaqed or environmental justice communities. aSANTA ANA PARKS MASTER PLAN CHAPTER 4: PARK ACCESS, EQUITY AND OPPORTUNITIES a