In the Black Belt of Alabama, EJ communities, deal with issues of environmental, economic, and social degradation that can be closely related to concerns of land. Land loss by EJ landowners and the subsequent intensification of agriculture and development has contributed substantially to the tremendous increases in food production and economic gains over the past 50 years. Land conversion and intensification, however, also alter the biotic interactions and patterns of resource availability in ecosystems and can have serious local, regional, and global environmental consequences. The rise of modern agricultural systems which are based on monoculture and high use of energy has margnalized EJ communities who have llive on the land and has led to loss of land and subsequently increased the level of porverty and degradtion of avalible land in the Alabama Black Belt. EJ land owners have adapted management practices that have helped them remain economically productive, although the ecological sustainability of some of these practices remains unresolved. The use of ecologically based management strategies can increase the sustainability of planned ecosystems while reducing on- and off-site consequences. Sustainability of anthropogenic ecosystems encompasses three major aspects: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and social sustainability. These three aspects are intimately linked. Evaluating the impact that land use management has on ecosystem functions is essential to environmental justice and the improvement of overall wellness of local, regional, and global communities.
Results/Conclusions We propose a model that attempts to assess sustainability in three phases: generation of sustainability indicators, collection of data related to indicators, rank and score treatment of resulting data. Methods of analysis will be dependent on the indicators of sustainability chosen and can be either quantitative or qualitative in nature with respect to: biophysical, microbiological, molecular, economic, and social observation. An intentional assemblage of this data may be used to set standards of sustainability, particularly in resource-poor areas that may be utilized in decisions related to environmental justice.
