Abstract This paper provides an overview of the role of the geographical sciences in helping to advance the measurement and monitoring of environmental justice. Questions related to the appropriate spatial unit (census block group, census tract, cities) for conducting environmental justice studies gave way to more sophisticated geo-spatial modeling of both exposures and at risk populations. Most of the early research was confined to proving or disproving injustices in the toxics arena, largely driven by a plethora of data on toxic releases in the US. Current research is more broadly focused on issues related to differential vulnerabilities to environmental and human-induced threats ranging from local pollution to large-scale global processes such as climate change and its impacts on the local level. This paper provides one example of research on the differential vulnerability of social groups or social vulnerability. Using Hurricane Katrina's impact on coastal Mississippi the paper demonstrates not only the disparities in impact, but the disparities in the recovery, both a product of race, class, and gender. Such injustices are rarely noted in federal disaster response and policy.