A review of uncertainty research in impact assessment

This paper examines uncertainty research in Impact Assessment (IA) and the focus of attention of the IA scholarly literature. We do so by first exploring ‘outside’ the IA literature, identifying three main themes of uncertainty research, and then apply these themes to examine the focus of scholarly research on uncertainty ‘inside’ IA. Based on a search of the database Scopus, we identified 134 journal papers published between 1970 and 2013 that address uncertainty in IA, 75% of which were published since 2005. We found that 90% of IA research addressing uncertainty focused on uncertainty in the practice of IA, including uncertainty in impact predictions, models and managing environmental impacts. Notwithstanding early guidance on uncertainty treatment in IA from the 1980s, we found no common, underlying conceptual framework that was guiding research on uncertainty in IA practice. Considerably less attention, only 9% of papers, focused on uncertainty communication, disclosure and decision-making under uncertain conditions, the majority of which focused on the need to disclose uncertainties as opposed to providing guidance on how to do so and effectively use that information to inform decisions. Finally, research focused on theory building for explaining human behavior with respect to uncertainty avoidance constituted only 1% of the IA published literature. We suggest the need for further conceptual framework development for researchers focused on identifying and addressing uncertainty in IA practice; the need for guidance on how best to communicate uncertainties in practice, versus criticizing practitioners for not doing so; research that explores how best to interpret and use disclosures about uncertainty when making decisions about project approvals, and the implications of doing so; and academic theory building and exploring the utility of existing theories to better understand and explain uncertainty avoidance behavior in IA.     

You see what I mean? – A review of visual tools for inclusive public participation in EIA decision-making processes

The literature is prolific on the use of visual tools and their potential to promote inclusive public participation. This is particularly the case with the literature on communication, as well as on environmental planning and management, but significantly less abundant in environmental impact assessment, which is the specific focus of our research. The purpose of this paper is to share research results on the actual capacity of visual tools to promote and enhance inclusive public participation in environmental impact assessment related decision-making processes. Based on the literature reviewed, and characterizing the key benefits and challenges of visual tools according to their technical, cognitive, social and emotional effects/dimensions, this paper will: (i) compare their potential capacity to promote inclusive public participation; (ii) consider whether, when applied, they were fit for purpose – i.e. designed to promote a participatory process in each specific case–, and (iii) to what extent was the public involved in their design. Our results show that the literature largely dwells upon ad hoc evaluations of visual tools employed, that normally they are preset, with predefined choices and not made to fit the reality that they intend to serve. We also conclude that, at least according to the experience shared in the literature, seldom is the public involved in the design and choice of visual tools.     

Strategic Environmental Assessment practices in European small islands: Insights from Azores and Orkney islands

The literature concerning Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) often refers to the importance of context-specific approaches. However, there is a lack of systematised and consistent studies that enhance tailor-made SEA practices and procedures. Small islands are bounded units of study which may help explore SEA theory and practice in special territories. Small islands present particular features and unique values, such as, small size and population, geographic isolation, limited resources and vulnerable ecosystems. Hence, the main goal of this research was to profile SEA practices and procedures in European small islands and provide a background for future research aiming to improve context-specific SEA applications. To achieve this goal, an exploratory case study was developed using Azores (Portugal) and Orkney (Scotland) archipelagos. An analysis of the corresponding mainland was also carried out to contextualise both case studies. The data collection was achieved through a qualitative content analysis of 43 Environmental Reports. The research found that there is not an SEA context-specific approach used within these European small islands, including guidelines, assessment topics, assessment techniques, follow-up and stakeholders engagement. The debate concerning specific approaches to small islands must be re-focused on the enhancement of SEA capacity-building amongst different stakeholders (including decision-makers), on the development and implementation of collaborative approaches, and on the exchange of knowledge and experiences between small islands networks.     

Understanding EIA scoping in practice: A pragmatist interpretation of effectiveness

Despite widespread recognition of the need to consider IA effectiveness in terms of practice, the literature is dominated by normative approaches that do little to advance understanding of the causal process that lead to particular outcomes. Focusing upon EIA scoping in England, we examine notions of effectiveness directly from the perspective of key practitioner communities. The ‘received view’ of scoping asserts that effectiveness is constrained by a failure to narrow the assessment focus. Using an alternative, pragmatist interpretation (inspired by American philosophical pragmatism) we analyse the understandings and actions of professional practitioner communities. We find that risk management ‘ends-in-view’ shape the interpretation of the purpose of scoping and hence effective practice. Amongst EIA consultants the ends-in-view emphasise managing the risk of project delays, whilst planning officers seek to minimise the risk of legal challenge, and statutory consultees aim to provide advice that is proportionate to potential environmental risks. Practitioner ends-in-view shape the scoping approaches employed and the opportunities for knowledge formulation and ‘learning in action’. Whilst practitioners demonstrate pragmatism in managing uncertainty and there is some awareness of potential power-play, we find that knowledge formation and learning is predominately instrumental and incremental. Instrumental in serving to refine technical details (rather than co-constructed, drawing on multiple rationalities and types of understanding), and incremental in that over time practitioners learn that the most effective way to achieve their ends-in-view is to include impacts — resulting in a broad, precautionary scoping outcome. Finally, we conclude with reflections on future research directions and the implications for practice given forthcoming changes to the regulatory framework.     

Not so Black and White: environmental justice and cumulative impact assessments

A growing number of scientific studies in recent years have investigated disparate exposure to ecological hazards in American society. Working from an environmental justice perspective, this body of research consistently reveals that poor communities of color are most likely to bear a disproportionate burden of negative externalities. These studies utilize a wide range of research methodologies, including various indicators of ecological hazards (e.g., proximity to waste sites, industrial emissions, ambient air quality), but few, if any, utilize composite measures to approximate cumulative environmental impact. Consequently, the environmental justice (EJ) literature is characterized by a failure to effectively measure overall impact from an extensive range of ecological hazards. Limitations on available data make this a serious problem for present and future studies. We argue that cumulative measures of environmental impact can play an important role in furthering our understanding of environmental injustices in the United States. In this study of Massachusetts, we develop and implement such a cumulative measure of negative environmental impacts. By controlling for the density and severity of ecological hazardous sites and facilities within every community in the state, we demonstrate that exposure patterns take a generally linear distribution when analyzed by race and class. So, while our results reaffirm previous findings that low-income communities and communities of color bear significantly greater ecological burdens than predominantly White and more affluent communities, our findings also suggest that environmental injustices exist on a remarkably consistent continuum for nearly all communities. In other words, as the minority population and lower-income composition of a community increases, correspondingly, so does cumulative exposure to environmental hazards. In this respect, communities which are more racially mixed and of moderate income status that are not typically identified as meeting EJ criteria (in demographic terms) also face more significant ecological hazards. Thus, the strict bifurcation of communities into categories of Environmental Justice and Non-Environmental Justice is problematic, and poses a serious dilemma for policy makers, public health officials, and community activists. To overcome this challenge requires the adoption of a cumulative environmental justice impact assessment (CEJIA), which in addition to the demographic characteristics of a community, also takes into account the total environmental burden and related health impacts upon residents. Furthermore, through the adoption of the precautionary principle, source reduction, and alternative forms of “cleaner” production, environmental justice advocates must work for policies which reduce the environmental threat for the full range of communities, as well as their own.     

Evaluating the impact of HIA on urban reconstruction decision-making. Who manages whose risks?

Practitioners and academic researchers increasingly look to evaluation of health impact assessment (HIA) to improve its practice, its efficiency and its legitimacy. Evaluation is also used to account to policy-makers, who express doubts that the benefits of HIA justify its costs. Until recently evaluation of HIA focused on instrument design and procedures but now the focus needs to shift to analysis of the interaction of HIA and decision-making. Multiple case studies have been applied to identify the conditions in which HIA produces the desired benefits. These studies used analytical concepts derived from the literature on evaluation, knowledge utilization, science of sociology and knowledge management.This paper describes a case study in which the strategic motives of the decision-makers affected the impact of an HIA. This HIA comprised of a quantitative environmental model ‘City & Environment’ that was used to assess environmental health impacts of an urban reconstruction plan in a Dutch city. The evaluation of the HIA shows that the decision to follow the recommendations of the HIA was part of a damage control strategy. The more HIA goals deviate from the policy problem and the less HIA is embedded in institutional procedures, then the more HIA impact will be subject to strategic decision-making behaviour. Appropriate cognitive and social strategies are needed to avoid ‘negative learning’ in those the HIA seeks to influence.     

Understanding why impact assessment fails; a case study of theory and practice from Wafi-Golpu,Papua New Guinea

From an instrumental or management perspective, impact assessment (IA) is a process of identifying impacts, finding solutions and achieving project approval. A recipient community, however, has a completely different perspective. For them the IA is about living with impacts, individually and collectively, perhaps over generations, and contested processes of self-determination, consultation and exclusion. IA practitioners live in a third space, usually bound to the proponent but also aware of responsibilities to communities and eco-systems. Seeking to better understand how IA is practiced and experienced, we explore the proposed Wafi-Golpu mine, located in the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. Determinably focused on local effects we situate the proposed mine within the context of the national mining experience and discuss how IA practices see local and/or Indigenous communities. We find that the Wafi-Golpu IA is blind to local ways of being and seeing the world, with an opaque and arbitrary assessment that reflects its technical and Western basis and bias. We finish with observations about the proposed Wafi-Golpu mine and IA that is relevant to the approval process, as well as making a decolonial, Southern contribution to IA theory and practice, extractive industry regulation and mining-affected communities elsewhere.     

Evaluating the environmental sustainability of biomass-based energy strategy: Using an impact matrix framework

A roadmap for a more sustainable energy strategy is complex, as its development interacts critically with the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. This paper applied an impact matrix method to evaluate the environmental sustainability and to identify the desirable policy objectives of biomass-based energy strategy for the case of Alberta. A matrix with the sustainability domains on one axis and areas of environmental impact on the other was presented to evaluate the nexus effect of policy objectives and bioenergy production.As per to our analysis, economic diversification, technological innovation, and resource conservation came up as the desirable policy objectives of sustainable development for Alberta because they demonstrated environmental benefits in all environmental impact categories, namely climate change, human health, and ecosystem. On the other hand, human health and ecosystem impacts were identified as trade-offs when the policy objectives for sustainability were energy security, job creation, and climate change. Thus, bioenergy can mitigate climate change but may impact human health and ecosystem which then in turn can become issues of concern. Energy strategies may result in shifting of risks from one environmental impact category to another, and from one sustainable domain to another if the technical and policy-related issues are not identified.     

Risk management and integrated assessment

Integrated Assessment (IA) is the pursuit of a research program generated by the limitations of traditional forms of risk management. This claim can be justified by the following argument. Over the last decades, analysts and practitioners have brought to maturity a large array of tools for risk management. Most of them rely on combining judgments of utility with judgments of probability. This is the approach of the Rational Actor Paradigm (RAP). With many environmental problems, however, RAP‐based tools have run into considerable practical and theoretical difficulties. In response to these difficulties, a series of alternative approaches to practical risk management and to the theoretical understanding of risk have been elaborated. They try to embed the rational choices of individual actors studied by RAP into a broader framework of social rationality. This task can be approached by distinguishing situations where an actor holds unambiguous judgments of preference and probability from situations characterized by ambivalent judgments. RAP can handle the former, but not the latter. Problems whose management requires a combination of widely differing scientific disciplines are especially likely to involve ambivalent judgments of probability. The study of such problems constitutes the research program of integrated assessment. It involves three main tasks: developing IA models which can represent ambivalent expectations and evaluations, developing IA models which use such representations to study non‐marginal changes of social systems, and developing procedures of participatory IA which enable researchers to engage in an iterative exchange with various stakeholders. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Exploring the use of computer models in participatory integrated assessment – experiences and recommendations for further steps

Integrated assessment (IA) can be defined as a structured process of dealing with complex issues, using knowledge from various scientific disciplines and/or stakeholders, such that integrated insights are made available to decision makers (J. Rotmans, Enviromental Modelling and Assessment 3 (1998) 155). There is a growing recognition that the participation of stakeholders is a vital element of IA. However, only little is known about methodological requirements for such participatory IA and possible insights to be gained from these approaches. This paper summarizes some of the experiences gathered in the ULYSSES project, which aims at developing procedures that are able to bridge the gap between environmental science and democratic policy making for the issue of climate change. The discussion is based on a total of 52 IA focus groups with citizens, run in six European and one US city. In these groups, different computer models were used, ranging from complex and dynamic global models to simple accounting tools. The analysis in this paper focuses on the role of the computer models. The findings suggest that the computer models were successful at conveying to participants the temporal and spatial scale of climate change, the complexity of the system and the uncertainties in our understanding of it. However, most participants felt that the computer models were less instrumental for the exploration of policy options. Furthermore, both research teams and participants agreed that despite considerable efforts, most models were not sufficiently user-friendly and transparent for being accessed in an IA focus group. With that background, some methodological conclusions are drawn about the inclusion of the computer models in the deliberation process. Furthermore, some suggestions are made about how given models should be adapted and new ones developed in order to be helpful for participatory IA. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Mesozooplankton assemblages and their relationship with environmental variables: a study case in a disturbed bay (Beagle Channel,Argentina)

This study focused on the seasonal and spatial analysis of the mesozooplankton community in a human-impacted subantarctic bay in Argentina and aimed to detect assemblages associated with environmental variability. Mesozooplankton samples and environmental data were obtained in the Ushuaia Bay (UB) seasonally, from August 2004 to June 2005, and spatially, from coastal (more polluted), middle (less influenced) and open sea water (free polluted) sampling stations. Remarkable seasonal changes on the mesozooplankton community were observed. Nitrogenated nutrients, chlorophyll a, salinity and temperature were the prevailing environmental conditions likely associated with the different mesozooplankton assemblages found in the bay. The copepods Eurytemora americana, Acartia tonsa, Podon leuckarti and Nematoda were particularly observed on the northwest coast of the bay, characterized by the highest level of urban pollution, eutrophicated by sewage and freshwater inputs from the Encerrada Bay which is connected to it. The stations situated in the northeast area, mostly influenced by freshwater input from rivers and glacier melting, showed low mesozooplankton abundances and an important contribution of adventitious plankton. The copepods Ctenocalanus citer, Clausocalanus brevipes and Drepanopus forcipatus were mostly observed at the stations located near the Beagle Channel, characterized by open sea and free polluted waters. Our findings suggest that the variations observed in the mesozooplankton assemblages in the UB seem to be modulated by environmental variables associated with the anthropogenic influence, clearly detected on the coast of the bay. Certain opportunistic species such as A. tonsa and E. americana could be postulated as potential bioindicators of water quality in subantarctic coastal ecosystems.     

Irrigation water quality and the benefits of implementing good agricultural practices during tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum) production

The implementation of good agricultural practices (GAP) from irrigation water to the tomato packaging process enhances the safety of fresh produce and its value throughout the food chain. The aim of the present study was to show that fresh produce farms that apply and enforce GAP could reduce the presence of Salmonella in finished produce. Samples were collected biweekly from six packing houses from the central region of Sinaloa, México, for the isolation of Salmonella spp by the ISO 6579:2002 method, and the isolated strains were serotyped and genotyped by the Kauffmman-White scheme and pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), respectively. Salmonella strains were detected in 13 (36.1 %) irrigation water samples, while only two tomato samples were positive (5.5 %). Eight different serotypes were identified in irrigation water, and Salmonella Oranienburg (34 %) was the most prevalent; however, only Salmonella Agona and Salmonella Weltevreden were present on tomatoes. Salmonella Oranienburg was the most widely dispersed and variable serotype, with 10 different PFGE profiles. Salmonella Weltevreden was isolated from both types of samples, albeit with distinct genetic profiles, implying that the sources of contamination differ. These results confirm the utility of implementing good agricultural practices to reduce Salmonella contamination in irrigation water and the packaging process.     

Confronting reality in strategic environmental assessment in Slovenia — Costs and benefits

We enlarge on the viewpoint published in the Environmental Impact Assessment Review in 2012 — A viewpoint on the approval context of strategic environmental assessments. Additional alerts concerning the procedural ineffectiveness of the strategic environmental assessment (SEA) process from the cost–benefit point of view are advanced. The major contribution to the long lasting, costly SEA processes, comes from ultraistic treatment of Natura 2000.The case study deals with a plan for constructing a traffic bypass around Škofljica, a town near Ljubljana. Based on their conclusions the authors propose that the following elements of the SEA procedure should be improved and optimised:

• –CBA for SEA should become a regular component when measuring its effectiveness.
• –Concretisation of expected SEA inputs to the plan should clarify its role at the earliest stage of the process.
• –SEA should contribute interactively to the optimisation of alternatives; cost–benefit analysis of the SEA process could support this process.
• –Nature protection interest should be confronted and balanced with wider development interests as formulated in the plan and should not be applied in absolute terms (e.g. Natura 2000).

     

Criteria for the evaluation of alternative environmental monitoring variables: Theory and an application using winter flounder (Pleuronectes americanus) and Dover sole (Microstomus pacificus)

The design of environmental monitoring programs is frequently hampered by a lack of objective, quantitative criteria for evaluating alternative monitoring variables. In this paper we describe two such criteria, which we call samples required — the number of samples required to detect a given change in value — and information imparted — the amount of environmental information revealed by the monitoring variable. We then use these criteria to evaluate fin erosion in winter flounder (Pleuronectes americanus) and Dover sole (Microstomus pacificus) as marine environmental monitoring variables. Two methods for determining the samples required use contaminated and reference areas to estimate the sample statistics of a hypothetical impacted population. The first method is based on the overall difference in the proportions of diseased fish in the reference and hypothetical populations. The second treats the proportion of diseased fish in individual trawls as the variate and determines the samples required based on the mean and variance of the reference and contaminated populations. We use both methods to predict the number of trawls needed to detect an increase of 200% in fin erosion in the reference population. The first method had greater statistical power but assumes spatially homogeneous populations. The second method accounts for environmental patchiness. For Dover sole it predicted 1661 trawls would be needed to detect the 200% increase. An estuarine winter flounder population would require 74 trawls, and an oceanic winter flounder population would require 142.5 trawls. It appears that fin erosion in winter flounder may be a useful indicator of environmental contamination, but several stipulations apply. Migration may inflate the number of diseased fish observed in the reference population, and a more detailed etiology of the disease is required, including an understanding of what contaminants are responsible for manifestation of the disease.     

全国近岸海域水质空间插值算法精度分析

空间插值技术对近海环境数据的分析和表征具有广泛应用价值,但目前针对各类模型适用性和精度比较的研究很少。基于2009年全国近岸海域299个站位的水质监测数据,利用交叉检验法,对3种插值算法13种模型的空间拟合结果进行分析和验证。结果表明,13种模型的模拟值与实测值显著相关(r=0.643~0.750,P0.01,n=299),说明其均适用于近岸海域水质的空间模拟;综合比较模拟结果与实测结果的相关系数、平均误差、平均绝对误差、均方差及偏离程度,排序为IDW(p2)Spline-TensionIDW(p3)IDW(p4)IDW(p1)IDW(p5)IDW(p6)Kriging-GuassianKriging-Spherical,Kriging-CircularKriging-LinearKriging-ExponentialSpline-Regularized,提出IDW(p2)是精度最优的空间插值模型。     

Toward ‘good process’ in regulatory reviews: Is Canada’s new system any better than the old?

What are the features of a good regulatory review process? In this paper we identify criteria for ‘good process’ drawn from a combined reading of the environmental justice and process literature. We then apply these criteria to a case study, assessing four versions of Canadian regulatory review: CEAA 1992, CEAA 2012, the 2017 Expert Panel report, and IAA 2019. We aim to make two contributions. First, we propose a set of ‘good process’ criteria that we hope can be widely applied, reflecting on complementarities and tensions that arise from combining two bodies of scholarship. Second, we identify areas where Canadian review processes have improved over time and those where significant work remains to be done. This work seeks to make a constructive intervention at a time when energy and industrial projects around the world face strong challenges in the legal, political and public domains.     

Weighing the evidence of ecological risk from PAHs contamination in the estuarine environment of Salina Cruz Bay, México

Results of bulk-phase chemical measurements, toxicological tests combined with bioaccumulation measures in fishes, were used to evaluate the toxicity of the 16 USEPA priority polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from the sediment collected from eight stations of the Ventosa Estuarine System, located close to the main center of processing oil in the Mexican Pacific coast. Levels of the sum of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons varied from 22 to 6,850 μg kg^???1 dry weight. Based on sediment quality guidelines, the compounds with high environmental priority were acenaphtylene, acenaphtene, and phenanthrene. Acute toxicity tests with Vibrio fischeri and Daphnia magna as well as chronic toxicity with Panagrellus redivivus were performed. The quantification of hepatic ethoxyresorufin O-deethylase activity was used to assess the induction of the mixed function oxygenase system of brown trout. However, because it is often difficult to blend the results from such very different assays into a unified decision about the potential for impacts, a weight-of-evidence (WOE) approach to sediment quality investigations was followed. These assays provided measurement endpoints that could be used to develop an overall evaluation of the potential for environmental impacts from the oil processing operations. WOE provides a valuable tool for assessing the results of environmental investigations because it provides a framework for considering the strengths and weaknesses of environmental measurements, an approach for addressing uncertainty in the measurements, and documentation of the evaluation and its assumptions.     

Urban daytime traffic noise prediction models

An evaluation was made of the acoustic environment generated by an urban highway using in situ measurements. Based on the data collected, a mathematical model was designed for the main sound levels (L _eq, L ₁₀, L ₅₀, and L ₉₀) as a function of the correlation between sound levels and between the equivalent sound pressure level and traffic variables. Four valid groups of mathematical models were generated to calculate daytime sound levels, which were statistically validated. It was found that the new models can be considered as accurate as other models presented in the literature to assess and predict daytime traffic noise, and that they stand out and differ from the existing models described in the literature thanks to two characteristics, namely, their linearity and the application of class intervals.     

Occurrence of virulence genes among Vibrio cholerae and Vibrio parahaemolyticus strains from treated wastewaters

Pathogenic Vibrio species are an important cause of foodborne illnesses. The aim of this study was to describe the occurrence of potentially pathogenic Vibrio species in the final effluents of a wastewater treatment plant and the risk that they may pose to public health. During the 1-year monitoring, a total of 43 Vibrio strains were isolated: 23 Vibrio alginolyticus, 1 Vibrio cholerae, 4 Vibrio vulnificus, and 15 Vibrio parahaemolyticus. The PCR investigation of V. parahaemolyticus and V. cholerae virulence genes (tlh, trh, tdh, toxR, toxS, toxRS, toxT, zot, ctxAB, tcp, ace, vpi, nanH) revealed the presence of some of these genes in a significant number of strains. Intraspecies variability and genetic relationships among the environmental isolates were analyzed by random amplified polymorphic DNA-PCR (RAPD-PCR). We report the results of the first isolation and characterization of an environmental V. cholerae non-O1 non-O139 and of a toxigenic V. parahaemolyticus strain in Tunisia. We suggest that non-pathogenic Vibrio might represent a marine reservoir of virulence genes that can be transmitted between strains by horizontal transfer.     

Dynamics of harmful dinoflagellates driven by temperature and salinity in a northeastern Mediterranean lagoon

To attempt to determine the effects of temperature and salinity on the dynamics of the dinoflagellate community, a monthly sampling was carried out from October 2008 to March 2009 at eight sampling stations in Ghar El Melh Lagoon (GML; Mediterranean Sea, Northern Tunisia). Dinoflagellates were dominant among plankton, accounting for 73.9 % of the lagoon’s overall plankton community, and were comprised of 25 different species among which 17 were reported in the literature as harmful. While no significant difference was found in the distribution of dinoflagellates among the stations, a strong monthly difference was observed. This temporal variability was due to an increase in the abundance of Prorocentrum micans from December to February, leading to a strong decrease in the Shannon diversity index from station to station. At the onset of P. micans development, dinoflagellate abundances reached 1.26.10⁵ cells l^?1. A redundance analysis indicates that both temperature and salinity have a significant effect on the dynamics of the dinoflagellate community. Using a generalized additive model, both temperature and salinity appear to have significant nonlinear relationships with P. micans abundances. Model predictions indicate that outbreaks of P. micans may occur at a temperature below 22.5 °C and with salinity above 32.5. We discuss our results against a backdrop of climate change which, by affecting temperature and salinity, is likely to have an antagonistic impact on P. micans development and subsequently on the dinoflagellate dynamics in GML.