LAGOS-US Race and Ethnicity: Dataset classifying conterminous US lake communities based on racial and ethnic demographic data (v 2.0)

Knowing the consistency of water quality sampling in lakes surrounded by a variety of racial and ethnic communities is important for potential policy uses and to assess community impacts. By using the 2010 US Census race and ethnicity demographic block group data, we analyzed the frequency (i.e., number of years and consistency) of lake water quality sampling according to racial and ethnic demographics in surrounding neighborhoods. Our approach classified human communities near lakes as predominantly White or people of color (POC), and Hispanic or non-Hispanic (NH). Associated R analysis scripts can also be found in this folder. Our data and approach can be used for future studies seeking to analyze environmental monitoring practices in relation to human demographic variables, particularly from US Census data.