Environmental impact studies: An interdisciplinary approach for assigning priorities

The cross-impact assessment process (CAP) is presented as a practical method for efficiently identifying a parsimonious set of critically important variables and associated relationships needed to conduct environmental impact studies. CAP was developed from the logic of a number of techniques that are collectively referred to as cross-impact analysis. The process is based on a series of structured workshops. The participants represent a variety of disciplines and individual members are selected because they have both the depth of understanding necessary to contribute specific knowledge on the environmental impact assessment problem and the breadth of view to integrate that knowledge with the information provided by other panelists. The results of the workshops are summarized in an importance index and presented in a cross-impact matrix. CAP is illustrated with an example from an Upper Mississippi River recreation impact study, but it can also be applied to any environmental impact assessment problem that can be characterized as a system of variables and relationships. CAP also provides an efficient and reasonably objective means for assigning priorities to environmental impact studies.