Powerpoint 1 Test 2

Question 1

Social Impacts = Social what?

Answer 1

Social Outcomes in which people live, work, play, relate to one
another, organize to meet their needs and generally cope as members of a society

Question 2

Social impact:

Answer 2

‘an actual experience of an individual or
community in response to a project – it is a change that must be
experienced or felt by the people affected rather than a normal
change in social conditions that occurs as a community grows’.

Question 3

Impacts can include what (give examples):

Answer 3

e.g. shortage of social services, fluctuating
property values, or a loss in community ‘cohesion’
Direct and indirect economic impacts
* Demographic impacts
* Health impacts
* Housing impacts
* Local service impacts
* Socio-cultural impacts

Pop. and demographic characteristics of the community;
* Relationships that communities have with their physical
environment;
* Past patterns of social dev’t that indicate the current
nature of social change;
* Social, economic and cultural resources that exist in the
community;
* Social activities that are on-going;
* Cultural groupings, behaviors, and values associated
with each culture.
* Physical boundaries

• Residential land use surrounded by other sue
• Areas with special pop. groups (e.g. elderly,
  low-income, etc.)
• Areas with like housing types (areas with
  distinct housing values
• Areas of predominantly one type of
  employment
• Areas with established community groups,
  organizations
• Areas with average length of residence of
  greater than 5 years
• Any special characteristics/ intangibles: e.g.
  ‘community cohesion’ – what indicators for
  this?

Question 4

Positive changes include what?

Answer 4

jobs, better sanitation, educ.
opportunities, social interaction, etc.

Question 5

What do Present ‘cause and effect’ models of trying to predict what will happen are not _______________________________ and why?

Answer 5

widely available/applicable;
Because EIAs ‘evolved’ before a conceptual basis for SIAs could be
developed; as a result most studies are fragmented and
inserted into an existing plan for an EIA w/o proper
foundation.

Question 6

• Predicting social impacts is also difficult because…

Answer 6

People can “… change their behavior and adapt to new social conditions on the basis of their knowledge of the project and its likely
impacts” (a form of resiliency)

(people and society change overtime)

Question 7

In general, an SIA attempts to:

Answer 7

• assess the non-quantifiable as well as
  quantifiable social components of a project
• conduct a comprehensive social analysis
• predict social change
• evaluate social impacts

Question 8

“A community or social group is more than the sum
of its population and physical resources.” Why?
How?

Answer 8

People are different and have many different cultures, esp. in Canada
Different attitudes, beliefs…

Question 9

Social environment: two elements

Answer 9

“tangibles” (components easily measured) and “intangibles”
(not easily measured, or quantified).

Question 10

SIA relies heavily on a ___________ process,
necessary when applying ‘______________’ to impacts. In
order to judge whether impacts are acceptable,
people need to _____________

Answer 10

consultative; values; apply a value to each one.

Question 11

For example, researchers have attempted to use
various tools to capture individual/group values
through multi-criteria analysis methods that assign
values to social and cultural resources through the
use of _______________________

Answer 11

surveys and participatory techniques.

Question 12

• Once social impacts identified and assigned a
  value, it is evaluated together with other impacts to
  determine ________________________________________.

Answer 12

whether the environmental
impacts are acceptable given the social costs

Question 13

At this point, ____________________ come into play…

Answer 13

samples, sampling error, and other
items related to surveys and statistics

Question 14

NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act, 1969) defined
environmental impacts broadly to include both __________
changes and major actions that _______________________.
NEPA did not consider what?

Answer 14

physical; significantly affect the quality of the human environment
the direct social impacts of a project, rather only those social impacts associated with (direct) biophysical effects

Question 15

Social change:

Answer 15

ongoing change in social conditions
that tends to happen in all communities.

Question 16

A sampling of approaches to access social change include:

Answer 16

Social: demographic models, participatory mapping, risk assessment, intention surveys
Economic: multipliers, input-output analysis, many models
Cultural: traditional knowledge, community dialogues, public meetings

Question 17

Technical processes versus participatory models:

Answer 17

Summary: technical processes (larger scale) use data and statistics to estimate social effects, while participatory models (smaller scale) reach out to people in a community on how they are affected.

Technical processes measure various component impacts: we can gain an understanding of the valued components (VCs) and dynamics of a community quantitatively by obtaining data on the community’s social attributes (demographics, statistics, etc.) to estimate social effects.

Participatory models are based on public participation to estimate social effects. Asking those most likely to be impacted by the project! This process also involves social learning on the part of the affected community, since the sharing of knowledge about related projects and their impacts helps the community learn about the nature of the project and its likely effects.

Question 18

Social Impact Assessment

Answer 18

aims to determine the social costs of the project and the degree to which the benefits of a project will be distributed in an equitable manner.

Question 19

SIA methodology (Includes 7 steps)

Answer 19

1) Impact study area (ROI)
delineation/categorization of project activities
Where ROI = Region of Influence (spatial bounding)

2) Scope of the project / Identify potential SE
impacts, theoretically care of in a participatory
scoping process where social issues/concerns
are raised by the public.

3) Description of local SE conditions (baseline assessment of social conditions to compare w/ project conditions)

4) Projection –> Predict the likely social and cultural impacts of the project; Impact prediction with and without project conditions

5) Evaluation of social changes – social impacts are put w/ physical environment and economic impacts for an overall judgment of a project’s acceptability. Quantitative methods include e.g. Cost-benefit analysis. Vs. more Qualitative measures: e.g. ‘social learning models which engage all of the stakeholders in learning about each participant’s needs and interests’.

6) Mitigating measures – measures identified to prevent or reduce adverse effects. In a participatory approach, mitigating measures are developed through citizen advisor groups, workshops, and public meetings that examine community preferences for different measures and determine the balance to be struck between design or operational changes and compensation, management, or control-sharing measures.

7) A monitoring program – confirms predicted outcomes, serving as a check on mitigating measures to make sure they perform as planned, and detecting unanticipated social impacts that might need corrective actions

Question 20

The time & money to develop adequate
baseline information is _____________________

Answer 20

rarely available

Question 21

Social predictions linked to high degrees of __________ and why?

Answer 21

uncertainty, due to complex and often intangible nature of human societies.

Question 22

In an SIA, researchers estimate social impacts by comparing
the _______________ state if the project were to go ahead with
the state _________________ and only as a result of social change in general. The difference between the two states in considered to
represent the ____________________.

Answer 22

expected future state; state that would exist without the project;

actual social impact

Question 23

SIA toolbox:

Answer 23

Comparative analysis,
extrapolations of existing social trends, use
of expert social opinion (surveys, interviews,
citizen advisory groups, workshops , focus
group meetings, etc.), through observation,
data collection or modeling, would like
information on human well-being, such as:
* Public and social service impacts
* Education/schools/school districts
* Health services- can meet anticipated
demand?
* Elderly care vs. daycare?
* Police and fire protection (safety and
security) / emergency services
* Utilities
* Solid waste management
* Neighborhood services
* Retail, large and small
* Places of worship
* Recreational facilities / libraries, etc.
* Housing
* Transportation (including commuting times)
* Urban land use, etc.

Question 24

Fiscal impacts:

Answer 24

Local and regional economics; a part
of “Quality of Life”

Question 25

“Quality of Life” (QOL):

Answer 25

A composite indication of economic, demographic, public service, social and fiscal impacts, and anything else related to a sense of
“well-being”.

How are accessibility and affordability affected by
change over time?

Question 26

SIA arguably originated as __________________
(at least) with _______________. Today,
objective is to ensure that the developments
(or planned interventions) that do occur
_______________ the benefits and ________ the
costs of those developments, esp. those
costs borne by the community
(EXTERNALITIES).

Answer 26

a specific concept; the 1969 NEPA;
maximize; minimize

Question 27

Early definitions of SIA followed NEPA’s
regulatory language, and were somewhat
_________ . However, Vanclay (2002) felt that
SIA “as a discipline is more than the
prediction of negative impacts: ”it is a
philosophy about ____________ …which considers the pathologies
of dev’t , goals of dev’t and processes of
de’vt, thus a ‘new’ definition:

Answer 27

limiting; dev’t and democracy;

“SIA is the process of analyzing (predicting, evaluating and reflecting) and managing the intended and unintended consequences on the human environment of planned interventions (policies, programs, plans, projects) and any social change processes invoked by those interventions so as to bring about a more sustainable and equitable biophysical and human environment.”

Question 28

Many established principles
have relevance to (or underpin) SIA

Answer 28

• Precautionary Principle
• Uncertainty Principle
• Intragenerational Equity
• Intergenerational Equity
• Recognition and Preservation of Diversity
• Internalization of Costs
• Polluter Pays Principle
• The Prevention Principle
• The Protection and Promotion of Health and
  Safety
• The Principle of Multisectoral Integration
• The Principle of Subsidiarity
  (decentralization of power and decision-making)

Question 29

(Canadian) Constitution Act of 1982 (sec. 35):

Answer 29

“…consult with rights-holders when… [project proposal] may interfere with or infringe
upon those rights”.

Question 30

IAA (2019):

Answer 30

“…impacts on rights of Indigenous Peoples (IPs)…to be considered in EA.”

Question 31

Duty to Consult

Answer 31

Formal, legal obligation for government to consult with Indigenous peoples; on a case-by-case basis, according to severity of potential impact.

Question 32

Box 10.2 Duty to Consult & the Haida Case Ruling

Answer 32

In 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decisions in Haida Nation v. British Columbia (Minister of Forests) and Weyerhaeuser. The Haida case involved a judicial review, pursuant to the British Columbia Judicial Review Procedure Act, of the minister’s decision to replace and approve the transfer of a tree farm license. In 1961, tree farm licenses were issued to MacMillan Bloedel, a forest harvesting company, permitting the company to harvest in an area of Haida Gwaii, the Queen Charlotte Islands. The licenses were replaced in 1981, 1995, and 2000; the tree farm license was transferred to Weyerhaeuser in 1999. The Haida challenged these replacements and the transfer, arguing that they were made without the consent of the Haida and over their objections. The Haida’s case was dismissed by the British Columbia Supreme Court, which noted that the law could not presume the existence of Indigenous rights based only on their assertion and concluded that the government had only a “moral duty” to consult. The decision was appealed, and the court of appeal found that the government had fiduciary obligations of good faith to the Haida with respect to their claims to Indigenous title and right and that both the province and Weyerhaeuser were aware of the Haida’s claims to the area covered by the licence. The court concluded that both the Crown and Weyerhaeuser had a legally enforceable duty to consult with the Haida to address their concerns. Weyerhaeuser’s appeal of the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada was allowed, but the government’s appeal was dismissed. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the duty to consult rests with government and government must consult and accommodate when there is knowledge of the potential existence of an Indigenous right or title, regardless of whether that right or title has been legally established.

Question 33

“Downloading” duty by government to the proponent?

Answer 33

The government can delegate certain consulting duties to the project proponent –> but the people consulted have to know

Question 34

Box 10.3 A water License retracted: Clarity of Roles and responsibilities in Discharging the Duty to Consult

Answer 34

Governments will sometimes delegate certain procedural aspects of consultation to project proponents. The objective is that project proponents or their consultants can provide comprehensive information to affected communities and capture all aspects of their concerns about the proposed project and in doing so meet the government’s own consultation requirements. Quite often, however, there can be confusion about the relative roles and responsibilities of government and industry—specifically in terms of a proponent’s actions to build relationships with a community to earn a social licence versus a government’s legal duty to consult. A recent example is a decision by the British Columbia Environmental Appeals Board regarding a challenge by the Fort Nelson First Nation over a water extraction licence issued to Nexen, an upstream oil and gas company, to support hydraulic fracturing in northern British Columbia. The Fort Nelson First Nation claimed that it was not made clear to them that their engagement with the project proponent also constituted the government’s legal duty to consult and that engagement with the proponent certainly did not meet their expectations for engagement with the Crown. The Appeals Board found that the province failed to consult, in good faith, with the Fort Nelson First Nation, noting that meaningful consultation must be based on a clear framework and set of processes. Nexen’s role in meeting the government’s legal obligation to consult was not clearly communicated to the First Nation. The board explained that if government expects a project proponent to play a role in the consultation process, then it must make that role clear to the First Nation. The company’s water extraction licence was retracted.

Question 35

There is no duty to reach an agreement during consultation; rather, the intent is to ______________________________.

Answer 35

substantially address the concerns of affected Indigenous peoples

Question 36

Challenges with Indigenous engagement:

Answer 36

1) Late timing of engagement: official (pre-planning) vs. reality (late in planning & dev’t cycle)
2) Misaligned expectations about the scope and intent of EA: rights-based issues vs. environmental issues (where do land use planning, policy, legal, land titles and such topics fall?)
3) Limited financial and human resource capacity
4) “Participation Fatigue” in resource-intense dev’t regions

Question 37

Conditions for meaningful Indigenous Engagement in EA (there are 6):

Answer 37

1. Government takes leadership role to address strategic issues (e.g. rights-based issues)
2. Proponents engages w/ community in the EA planning process (e.g. before EIS is complete, help set Terms of Reference); facilitate contributing to planning assessment and development process; Exchange of information; Alternatives discussed.
3. Communities have access to capacity-building and financial support
4. Communities have access to information
5. Engagement continues after the EA approved
6. Opportunities for Indigenous-led EA are present

Question 38

Citizen Values Assessment (CVA)

Answer 38

is the difference that an intended
activity will make to the living environment of
people potentially affected by a project

• How do people feel about their living
  environment? How do people think a planned project can affect its qualities?
• SIA practitioners as ‘gatekeepers’ with access to local knowledge and making it available to others.
• “…social impacts are rarely included in EIA studies.

primarily an instrument to incorporate
within an EIA the importance people attach to
particular environmental attributes;
value judgements of individuals about the quality of their living env’t and its various attributes.
Living env’t (LE) = area in which people live, work, and play. Citizens = all residents and other users of an area potentially affected by an intended activity.
Through in-depth interviews; later validated by a quantitative survey of a representative sample of the population. Key values are presented in a citizen values profile (CVP), forming the basis of assessment
by which project alternatives are evaluated. The CVP is translated into evaluation criteria that are subsequently operationalized by qualitative and quantitative variables.

Question 39

Box 10.5 Ur-Energy Inc. Screech Lake Uranium Exploration Project

Answer 39

In 2006, Ur-Energy Inc. applied for a uranium exploration license in the Upper Thelon watershed, Northwest Territories. The project would involve exploration activity and the construction of a temporary work camp. The exploration activity would occur 300 kilometres east of Łutsël K’e Dene First Nation in the Akaitcho. The Thelon River, a designated Canadian Heritage River, runs through the watershed. The region is also of significant spiritual and cultural importance to the Łutsël K’e (MVEIRB, 2007). The project was referred to the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board (MVEIRB) for an EA under the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. In 2007, during a public hearing in Łutsël K’e, numerous social and cultural concerns were raised about the project, including the importance of the region to Indigenous peoples—namely, because of its spiritual significance and importance for wildlife. In its report, the MVEIRB noted that Łutsël K’e people “described their distress at the prospect of industrial development of an area they wish to pass on to their children as they inherited it from previous generations” (MVEIRB, 2007, p. 1). Concerns were also raised during the hearings about the potential for exploration activity to pave the way for future development in the Akaitcho region.
The project proponent indicated that exploration activity would be localized, would last for only a short time period, and was unlikely to pose any significant adverse effects on traditional land use or to wildlife (MVEIRB, 2007). In the MVEIRB’s decision statement, however, it concluded that the project, when considering other present land uses and the prospects of future development in the Upper Thelon Basin, “will cause adverse cultural impacts of a cumulative nature to areas of very high spiritual importance to aboriginal peoples” (MVEIRB, 2007, p. ii). The MVEIRB recommended that the project be rejected, stating:

The Review Board considered the evidence of cultural impacts from the people of Łutsël K’e and other aboriginal groups. This included traditional knowledge shared by the Elders. In the view of the Review Board, the Upper Thelon area is of high spiritual and cultural importance to the Akaitcho and other aboriginal peoples. They see industrial development, including this proposed development and others, as a desecration of a spiritual area of intrinsic value. The Review Board is of the view that although the proposed development is physically small, the potential cultural impacts are not. (MVEIRB, 2007, p. 1)

The MVEIRB’s recommendation to reject the project was accepted by the minister of Indian and Northern Affairs. Ehrlich (2010) describes the case as an illustration of EA going beyond “bones and stones” to incorporate non-tangible cultural values and concerns.

Question 40

Normative approach

Answer 40

Using subjective value judgements of individual Citizens and the meanings they attach to the qualities of the living env’t

Question 41

Technocratic approach

Answer 41

using scientifically rigorous and technically
sound data

Question 42

what happens when we combine a Normative approach with a Technocratic approach

Answer 42

a ‘rational’ basis for decision-
making. Info is complementary to expert
judgements and can be added to the
analysis of impacts in EIS .

Question 43

CVA Does NOT:

Answer 43

• Measure attitudes
• Investigate preferences or opinions
  about alternative plans or projects
• Measure community views about the
  future impacts of projects
• Evaluate the extent of acceptance of, or
  resistance to, intended activities.
• Provide a full range of possible social
  impacts of a given project

Question 44

Citizen values assessment does:

Answer 44

• Act as an EIA instrument that
  measures citizens judgments about
  the qualities of the local environment,
• Provide a framework for analysis by
  which the possible impacts of
  project alternatives on those env’t
  attributes can be evaluated.
• Apply to those social impacts
  associated with perceived env’t
  values, and not to other dimensions
  of social impact such as health and
  social wellbeing, economic impacts
  and material wellbeing, cultural
  impacts, family and community
  impacts, gender impacts, and so on.

Question 45

CVA conceived and developed ___________________________.

Answer 45

with the Netherlands Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Mgt for the Dutch EIA context.

Question 46

SIA and EIA have emerged as ________________, each with its own paradigm and
discourse, with EIA focusing on __________ impacts, and SIA on ___________ impacts, or
within EIA used mainly as a tool to examine the ‘_______________’ impacts on humans.

Answer 46

different disciplines; biophysical; sociocultural ; technical

Question 47

CVA is an SIA instrument as it provides a __________________________.
Also an EIA instrument because it addresses ____________________________.

Answer 47

mechanism to integrate SIA with EIA (establishing legal mandate for SIA).

the qualities of the env’t and the way these may be affected by planned activities, and because its purpose is to incorporate social considerations within EIA

Question 48

CVA consists of 4 phases +a follow-up step related to the integration of
outcomes of CVA into an EIS. What are they?

Answer 48

Phase 1: BASIC GROUNDWORK: problem definition, delineation of and identification of interest groups, and the collection of
background info.

Phase 2: IDENTIFYING KEY VALUES: preliminary qualitative study to provide in-depth understanding of local people’s connections to the area affected by the project. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with people form all relevant interested and affected parties, including residents, commuters, workers, day-trippers and tourists. The outcome is a listing of he selected key values of the affected community (a preliminary profile). Investigates the baseline conditions of the study area.

Phase 3: CONSTRUCTING A CITIZEN VALUES PROFILE: a quantitative survey is conducted to validate the key values identified in phase 2 to determine the relative importance of those key values, and how respondents feel about their present living env’t in respect of the key values. The outcome is an assessment matrix or citizen values profile (CVP).

Phase 4: DETERMINING IMPACTS OF PROJECT ALTERNATIVES: the citizen value profile is translated in to evaluation criteria. Qualitative or quantitative variables are identified for each of the assessment criteria. Impacts are determined and alternative are compared.

FOLLOW-UP PHASE: After CVA study completed the results should be integrated in the EIA . A possible way to integrate CVA outcomes in an EIS is the development of a citizen values scenario complementary to other scenarios such as an economic scenario or a nature scenario.