The challenges and opportunities in cumulative effects assessment

The cumulative effects of increasing human use of the ocean and coastal zone have contributed to a rapid decline in ocean and coastal resources. As a result, scientists are investigating how multiple, overlapping stressors accumulate in the environment and impact ecosystems. These investigations are the foundation for the development of new tools that account for and predict cumulative effects in order to more adequately prevent or mitigate negative effects. Despite scientific advances, legal requirements, and management guidance, those who conduct assessments—including resource managers, agency staff, and consultants—continue to struggle to thoroughly evaluate cumulative effects, particularly as part of the environmental assessment process. Even though 45 years have passed since the United States National Environmental Policy Act was enacted, which set a precedent for environmental assessment around the world, defining impacts, baseline, scale, and significance are still major challenges associated with assessing cumulative effects. In addition, we know little about how practitioners tackle these challenges or how assessment aligns with current scientific recommendations. To shed more light on these challenges and gaps, we undertook a comparative study on how cumulative effects assessment (CEA) is conducted by practitioners operating under some of the most well-developed environmental laws around the globe: California, USA; British Columbia, Canada; Queensland, Australia; and New Zealand. We found that practitioners used a broad and varied definition of impact for CEA, which led to differences in how baseline, scale, and significance were determined. We also found that practice and science are not closely aligned and, as such, we highlight opportunities for managers, policy makers, practitioners, and scientists to improve environmental assessment.     

Looking up,down, and sideways: Reconceiving cumulative effects assessment as a mindset

Despite all the effort that has gone into defining, researching and establishing best practices for cumulative effects assessment (CEA), understanding remains weak and practice wanting. At one extreme of implementation, CEA can be described as merely an irritant to the completion of a project-specific environmental assessment (EA). At the other extreme, the conceptual view is that all effects in EA should be deemed cumulative unless demonstrated otherwise. Our purpose here is to consider how we might reconceive CEA as a mindset that is at the heart of absolutely every assessment of valued ecosystem component (VEC) to ensure that we understand the relative contributions of various stressors and can decide when cumulative effects may foreclose future activities due to impacts on VECs. Conceptually, we ground the CEA mindset in the context of three lenses that must all be functioning and working together for the mindset to be operative: a technical lens; a law and policy lens; and a participatory lens. Our arguments are based on a review of the CEA, strategic effects assessment (SEA) and regional effects assessment literatures, an examination and consideration of Canadian EA and SEA case practice, and our combined professional experiences. Through using the Bay of Fundy in Canada as a case example, we establish the concept of the CEA mindset and an approach for moving forward with implementation.     

Use of significance thresholds to integrate cumulative effects into project-level socio-economic impact assessment in Canada

A longstanding critique of project-level environmental assessment is that it is weak at addressing cumulative effects, and because of this many argue that cumulative effects are best managed at a regional scale. However, in the absence of regional management it is important that project-level assessment supports cumulative effects management as best as possible. In this paper we present case study socio-economic impact assessments of liquefied natural gas development on Aboriginal groups on Canada's west coast. The case studies use an analytical structure modified from typical Canadian practice including unambiguous and non-arbitrary significance thresholds grounded in stakeholder values to focus baselines, impact assessment, and significance determination on cumulative effects. This approach is found to be more capable of informing decision-makers on cumulative effects as well as more rigorous and transparent than typical assessments. Much of this approach is not conceptually new, but at least in western Canada such an approach is not typically used or meaningfully implemented by practitioners. As such, the case studies serve to illustrate how practice can bolster project-level assessment.     

Stakeholder participation in health impact assessment: A multicultural approach

The literature on impact assessment (HIA) registers the importance of stakeholder participation in the assessment process, but still lacks a model for engaging stakeholders of diverse ethnic, professional and sectorial backgrounds. This paper suggests that the multicultural approach can contribute to HIA through a revision of the generic 5-step HIA model, and its implementation in a metropolitan plan in Southern Israel. The health issue scoped by the stakeholders in the HIA is related to land uses in the vicinity of the national hazardous industry and hazardous waste site. The stakeholders were representatives of the diverse populations at stake, including rural Bedouins and Jewish city dwellers, as well as representatives from the public sector, private sector, non-governmental organizations and academia. The case study revealed that a multicultural stakeholder participation process helps to uncover health issues known to the community which were not addressed in the original plan, and provides local knowledge regarding health conditions that is especially valuable when scientific data is uncertain or absent. It enables diverse stakeholders to prioritize the health issues that will be assessed. The case study also reveals ways in which the model needs revisions and improvements such as in recruitment of diverse participants. This paper presents a multicultural model of HIA and discusses some of the challenges that are faced when HIA is implemented in the context of current decision-making culture.     

A critical review of building environmental assessment tools

Since the field of environmental assessment tools for buildings is vast, the aim of this study is to clarify that field by analysing and categorising existing tools. The differences between the tools are discussed and the current situation within the tools is critically analysed. However, the comparison of the tools is difficult, if not impossible. For example, the tools are designed for assessing different types of buildings, and they emphasise different phases of the life cycle. In addition to environmental aspects, sustainable building includes economic and social aspects. The shift from green building to sustainable building and the future requirements are challenging for building environmental assessment tools. Furthermore, the benefits of using the tools should be analysed — how the tools and their results have affected decision making?     

A framework for adaptive monitoring of the cumulative effects of human footprint on biodiversity

Effective ecological monitoring is imperative in a human-dominated world, as our ability to manage functioning ecosystems will depend on understanding biodiversity responses to anthropogenic impacts. Yet, most monitoring efforts have either been narrowly focused on particular sites, species and stressors — thus inadequately considering the cumulative effects of multiple, interacting impacts at scales of management relevance — or too unfocused to provide specific guidance. We propose a cumulative effects monitoring framework that integrates multi-scaled surveillance of trends in biodiversity and land cover with targeted evaluation of hypothesized drivers of change. The framework is grounded in a flexible conceptual model and uses monitoring to generate and test empirical models that relate the status of diverse taxonomic groups to the nature and extent of human “footprint” and other landscape attributes. An adaptive cycle of standardized sampling, model development, and model evaluation provides a means to learn about the system and guide management. Additional benefits of the framework include standardized data on status and trend for a wide variety of biodiversity elements, spatially explicit models for regional planning and scenario evaluation, and identification of knowledge gaps for complementary research. We describe efforts to implement the framework in Alberta, Canada, through the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, and identify key challenges to be addressed.     

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.     

A critical review of seven selected neighborhood sustainability assessment tools

Neighborhood sustainability assessment tools have become widespread since the turn of 21st century and many communities, mainly in the developed world, are utilizing these tools to measure their success in approaching sustainable development goals. In this study, seven tools from Australia, Europe, Japan, and the United States are selected and analyzed with the aim of providing insights into the current situations; highlighting the strengths, weaknesses, successes, and failures; and making recommendations for future improvements. Using a content analysis, the issues of sustainability coverage, pre-requisites, local adaptability, scoring and weighting, participation, reporting, and applicability are discussed in this paper. The results of this study indicate that most of the tools are not doing well regarding the coverage of social, economic, and institutional aspects of sustainability; there are ambiguities and shortcomings in the weighting, scoring, and rating; in most cases, there is no mechanism for local adaptability and participation; and, only those tools which are embedded within the broader planning framework are doing well with regard to applicability.     

A historical review of the cumulative science in SEA effectiveness

Based on research on the effectiveness of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and the critical factors determining it, numerous questions regarding SEA and its effectiveness have come to light. In this paper, we address a range of these questions based on a review of 39 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Questions are examined such as how effectiveness is defined and how the critical factors affecting it are determined. The concept of effectiveness is broadly accepted, but its meaning differs between different schools of thought. Effectiveness is clearly kept apart from the concept of quality, but in many definitions of SEA effectiveness, we have seen the concepts presented as overlapping and developing through time. At any point in time, a multitude of meanings of effectiveness thus exist, sustaining the idea of Thomas Kuhn that this kind of social science is not really cumulative. To overcome these limitations, we present a view of how these different concepts can be presented in a number of logical and historical steps. Based on the critical factors and their concentration into broader concepts, it targets to the formulation of a general, more comprehensive model that can describe the interrelationship between general- and stage-specific critical factors. It is concluded that “comprehensive models of causation” exist which condense a broader range of critical factors into only 4–10 main topics that describe the most pivotal forces at play. It may be possible to facilitate a common understanding of the nature of SEA and thus invite future research.     

Climate impact on social systems: the risk assessment approach

A novel approach to the problem of estimating climate impact on social systems is suggested. This approach is based on a risk concept, where the notion of critical events is introduced and the probability of such events is estimated. The estimation considers both the inherent stochasticity of climatic processes and the artificial stochasticity of climate predictions due to scientific uncertainties. The method is worked out in some detail for the regional problem of crop production and the risks associated with global climate change, and illustrated by a case study (Kursk region of the FSU). In order to get local climatic characteristics (weather), a so-called statistical weather generator is used. One interesting finding is that the 3% risk level remains constant up to 1.0–1.1°C rise of mean seasonal temperature, if the variance does not change. On the other hand, the risk grows rapidly with increasing variance (even if the mean temperature rises very slowly). The risk approach is able to separate two problems: (i) assessment of global change impact, and (ii) decision making. The main task for the scientific community is to provide the politicians with different options; the choice of admissible (from the social point of view) critical events and the corresponding risk levels is the business of decision makers.     

Strategic environmental assessment for sustainability: A review of a decade of academic research

This paper examines the strategic environmental assessment (SEA)–sustainability relationship over the past decade, from 2000 to 2010, focusing in particular on the incorporation of sustainability in SEA. A total of 86 papers from the academic literature containing the terms ‘sustainability’ or ‘sustainable development’ and ‘strategic environmental assessment’ were identified and reviewed. Several common themes emerged by which SEA can support sustainability, including providing a framework to support decision making for sustainability; setting sustainability objectives, ensuring the consideration of ‘more sustainable’ alternatives, and integrating sustainability criteria in PPP development; and promoting sustainability outcomes through tiering and institutional learning. At the same time, our review identified many underlying barriers that challenge SEA for sustainability, including the variable interpretations of the scope of sustainability in SEA; the limited use of assessment criteria directly linked to sustainability objectives; and challenges for decision-makers in operationalizing sustainability in SEA and adapting PPP development decision-making processes to include sustainability issues. To advance SEA for sustainability there is a need to better define the scope of sustainability in SEA; clarify how to operationalize the different approaches to sustainability in SEA, as opposed to simply describing those approaches; provide guidance on how to operationalize broad sustainability goals through assessment criteria in SEA; and understand better how to facilitate institutional learning regarding sustainability through SEA application.     

Probabilistic risk assessment of insecticide concentrations in agricultural surface waters: a critical appraisal

Due to the specific modes of action and application patterns of agricultural insecticides, the insecticide exposure of agricultural surface waters is characterized by infrequent and short-term insecticide concentration peaks of high ecotoxicological relevance with implications for both monitoring and risk assessment. Here, we apply several fixed-interval strategies and an event-based sampling strategy to two generalized and two realistic insecticide exposure patterns for typical agricultural streams derived from FOCUS exposure modeling using Monte Carlo simulations. Sampling based on regular intervals was found to be inadequate for the detection of transient insecticide concentrations, whereas event-triggered sampling successfully detected all exposure incidences at substantially lower analytical costs. Our study proves that probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) concepts in their present forms are not appropriate for a thorough evaluation of insecticide exposure. Despite claims that the PRA approach uses all available data to assess exposure and enhances risk assessment realism, we demonstrate that this concept is severely biased by the amount of insecticide concentrations below detection limits and therefore by the sampling designs. Moreover, actual insecticide exposure is of almost no relevance for PRA threshold level exceedance frequencies and consequential risk assessment outcomes. Therefore, we propose a concept that features a field-relevant ecological risk analysis of agricultural insecticide surface water exposure. Our study quantifies for the first time the environmental and economic consequences of inappropriate monitoring and risk assessment concepts used for the evaluation of short-term peak surface water pollutants such as insecticides.     

Scientist–stakeholder collaboration in integrated assessment of climate change: lessons from a case study of Northwest Canada

Research on the climate change issue has generally focused on uncertainties in climate projections and calculation of mitigation costs. Most integrated assessment (IA) efforts have been directed at the mitigation component. The problem of climate change, however, is really about the potential effects on ecosystems, resources, and societies that depend on them. As illustrated by experiences from the Mackenzie Basin Impact Study, a case study from Northwest Canada, these effects will be unique to each region and country. Many of these will be indirect, including region specific thresholds, vulnerabilities and adaptations which may not be included in sectoral analyses. Science can define some of the “What if” aspects of climate change, but the regional “So what” and “What should be done” questions are largely unanswered and subject to intense debate in various political fora. IA needs to recognize the multiobjective and multistakeholder aspects of vulnerabilities, risks, and potential responses to climate change. IA could provide a more holistic analysis of the regional impacts dimension of climate change by including both modeling and non‐modeling approaches, and incorporating institutional and stakeholder issues that do not readily lend themselves to economic analyses.     

Uncertainty management in integrated assessment modeling: towards a pluralistic approach

Integrated Assessment (IA) is an evolving research community that aims to address complex societal issues through an interdisciplinary process. The most-widely used method in Integrated Assessment is modeling. The state of the art in Integrated Assessment modeling is described in this paper in terms of history, general features, classes of models, and in terms of the strengths and weaknesses, and the dilemmasand challenges modelers face. One of the key challenges is the issue of uncertainty management. The paper outlines the sources and types of uncertainty modelers are confronted with. It then discusses how uncertainties are currently managed inIntegrated Assessment modeling, on which evaluation it is argued that complementary methods are needed that allow for pluralistic uncertainty management. The paperfinalises with discussing pluralistic concepts and approaches that are currently explored in the IA community and that seem promising in view of the challenge to incorporate explicitly more than one hidden perspective in models.     

Examining the uncertainty of carbon emission changes: A systematic approach based on peak simulation and resilience assessment

Efforts to achieve carbon peak is one of the Chinese government's commitments, but the diversity of future development paths leads to the uncertainty of carbon emissions. Based on the carbon peak simulation, this study develops a framework to assess the carbon emission uncertainty, aiming to explore the potential low-carbon paths. The STIRPAT model is firstly introduced to explore the influence of population, economic and technology factors on carbon emissions, which is followed by emission peaks simulation. The resilience theory is then introduced to define the concept of low-carbon resilience (LCR), which refers to the ability to maintain a low level of carbon emissions. The uncertainty of carbon emission changes between different scenarios is identified by considering peaking time, cumulative increase and mitigation process. This study taking 10 Chinese coastal provinces as an example, and results show that all provinces can achieve the target of carbon emission peak in low-emissions scenario, the cumulative growth of carbon emissions is low and can be mitigated over a relatively short term, showing a strong LCR. In high-emissions scenario, Liaoning, Tianjin, Fujian and Guangxi may not have a peak before 2050, the uncertainty of carbon emission changes is relatively high, while Hebei, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Guangdong show relatively low uncertainty for the clear peaking time. The study also designs intermediate scenario to reduce the uncertainty of carbon emission changes to provide reference for each province's emission reduction path. These findings help to understand carbon uncertainty to reduce the risk of increasing cumulative emissions under the scenario of only focusing on peaking times, and provide a basis for future carbon resilience and sustainable emission reduction policies.     

Evaluating impacts of marine governance on human communities: Testing aspects of a human impact assessment model

A human impact assessment (HIA) model was developed to guide research to understand how changes in a fishery can impact fishermen and fishing communities. Path analysis demonstrates that job satisfaction is an important variable intervening between marine governance and well-being. Individual-level variables in the demographic latent variable influence aspects of job satisfaction as well as well-being. It is variance in management that influences satisfaction with fishing which has a direct effect on well-being. In the HIA model, the three components of job satisfaction (self-actualization, income, and psycho-social) have the greatest total impact on well-being. The model also indicates complex relationships between management, fishing activity attributes, job satisfaction, and individual and social attributes. Relationships between community context and differences in job satisfaction in the Northeast and Alaska regions confirmed that these factors, also included in the HIA model, are important aspects of impact assessment. Results help to show that changes in ocean governance have impacts on the human communities who use these important resources. To anticipate and ameliorate potential impacts on human well-being as indicated by tools such as the HIA model, research needs to be accomplished to appropriately design and account for these impacts.     

有机污染物入海扩散行为研究

通过对半封闭海湾内不同潮期、不同点位有机物浓度的分析,总结了有机污染物从陆域污染源到海水中由mg/L级到μg/L级的指数衰减变化规律,指出现有的海域功能区划和监测点位应该进行调整.     

Social sensitivity analysis in conflictive environmental governance: A case of forest planning

In environmental governance, there is a need to include tools that analyze the robustness of the assessment processes, as well as the validity of policies and measures. This requires a methodological framework that integrates formal techniques such as sensitivity analysis with what the authors have called social sensitivity analysis. The latter consists of participatory processes in which stakeholders analyze the robustness of the assessment process used as well as the validity of the results of such assessments. This methodology was applied to a procedure for assessing planning alternatives for forest tracks. Sensitivity analysis studies the technical robustness of the results of the assessment, as well as exploring the social validity of these results, thus facilitating processes of dialogue and consensus needed in decision-making in conflictive situations. These results are considered interesting, not only from the perspective of implanting polices, but also as a reference for other places with similar situations.     

Empowering impact assessments knowledge and international research collaboration - A bibliometric analysis of Environmental Impact Assessment Review journal

Innovation, knowledge exchange and collaboration are fundamental in environmental studies. Impact assessments represent a key tool in identifying and predicting the environmental consequences of a project. The journal Environmental Impact Assessment Review started promoting research discussing different issues or methods in the field of impact assessments and environmental management since 1980. By analyzing 1664 articles published within the journal between 1980 and 2018 by 2935 authors, affiliated to institutions from 75 countries, this study aims to provide a better understanding of the environmental assessment research trends. Bibliometric indicators such as keywords or country of affiliation were analyzed through a network methodological approach, including co-occurrence analysis, centrality metrics and multiple correspondence analysis. The international collaboration and productivity maps bring a novel overview to this type of analysis and reveal new perspectives for thrived cooperation on environmental assessments research. The results illustrate the most common research topics through a conceptual structure map and a keywords co-occurrence graph with a temporal overlay, which allows observing their evolution over the years. Furthermore, this work tries to explain the political, economic, social and technological factors that influence the tendencies in environmental assessments research and scientific cooperation, providing future insights for environmental scientific priorities.     

Application of data envelopment analysis in environmental impact assessment of a coal washing plant: A new sustainable approach

The main problem of traditional methods of environmental impact assessment (EIA) is that in most of the existing algorithms and methods, such as Leopold, Folchi and RIAM, the main attention is to the destructive effects of the proposed plan, and the advantages of the industrial project are less noticeable. This has led to a permanent challenge between environmental organizations and industrial stakeholders. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a new approach of assessing the industrial units. Besides, it considers the positive economic and social impacts of the project and provides a comprehensive assessment of the industrial unit. With this approach, the environmental impacts of an industrial unit have been considered as “inputs” and its positive economic and social impacts considered as the “outputs” of the DEA models. Therefore, the problem of impact assessment changes into a DEA model. In the present study, the Alborz Sharghi Coal washing plant in northern Iran has been considered as a case study for implementing the DEA-EIA approach, and 19 plant activities and 11 environmental components have been used to evaluate the environmental effects of the plant. To solve the EIA problem, two commonly used DEA approaches, called CRS (constant returns to scale) and VRS (variable returns to scale), have been used. The DEA results identified the critical environmental components of the plant that should be considered seriously. Also, drawing the “potential improvement” diagram in the DEA method is an effective tool for determining the high risk activities of the factory and applying them in development plans. Besides, using the VRS model with maximize-output approach showed that some of the plant activities had the most differences with optimal mode and these components should be considered in future development plans. Finally, it can be concluded that, assessing the environmental impacts of the mineral industries with VRS maximize-output approach, is closer to the concept of sustainable development and cost-benefit analysis.