Use LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to navigate between flashcards;
Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to flip the card;
H to show hint;
A reads text to speech;
38 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
|
What are the two definitions of EA |
1. The process of identifying, predicting, evaluating, and mitigating the biophysical, social and other relevant effects of development proposals prior to major decisions being taken and commitments made. 2. A very political and nasty process where proponents try to green wash and force their moneymaking schemes through gov hoops in timely and inexpensive manner |
|
|
What are several key principles of EA that define how the process should be applied? |
- As early as possible in planning and decision-making stages - Applied to all proposals that may generate significant adverse effects or for which there is sig pub concern - consideration of biophysical + human issues potentially affected by dev, including health, gender and culture and cumulative effects - principles of sustainable dev - in a manner that allows involvement in decision making process |
|
|
What is the generic process of EA |
1. Project Description 2. Screening 3. Scoping 4. Alternatives 5. Impact prediction + Eval 6. Impact Management 7. Review + decision 8. Implementation, follow up, monitoring |
|
|
What is EIA? |
A process to predict the environmental effects of proposed initiatives before they are carried out |
|
|
What are some tools/methods used in EA, and what are they used for? |
Impact Identification/comm - Checklists - Matrices Baseline assessment - understanding trends - Networks or system diagrams Spatial Analysis - Geographic Information System (GIS) Impact Prediction - examination of similar projects - delphi technique - modelling - scenario analysis |
|
|
What is the Delphi technique? |
Iterative questionnaire completed by a group of experts; feedback to participants; opportunity to revise previous judgement - 3 rounds: 1st - open-ended or structured questionnaire, 2nd - reiteration of questions based on 1st round (conflict/non-concensus), 3rd - findings/conclusions reported back - iterations stop when desired level of consensus is reached |
|
|
What is scenario analysis? |
A hypothetical sequence of events constructed for the purpose of focusing attention on causal processes and decision points - compares alternative scenarios |
|
|
What is Social Impact Assessment? |
Efforts to assess, appraise or estimate, in advance, the social consequences that are likely to follow from proposed actions |
|
|
What are social impacts? |
the consequences to human populations of any public or private actions that alter the ways in which ppl live, work, play, etc. - also includes cultural impacts involving changes to norms values and beliefs that guide and rationalize their cognition of themselves and their society |
|
|
What does SIA do? |
- help make decisions - help affected community and agencies plan for social change or bring forward info leading to a no go decision - brings local knowledge to decision process - saves money by scoping whats important |
|
|
What are social impact variables? |
population change community/institutional structures political + social resources community + family changes community resources |
|
|
What are the different socio-economic baseline data that can be collected? |
- Economics (labour, wage levels, tourism, skill/education) - Housing (public/private housing, house prices, homelessness) - Demographics (pop, characteristics, settlement patterns) - Local services - Health (quality of life, medical standards) - Socio-cultural (family life, culture, crime rates) |
|
|
What are the different socio-economic impacts? |
- Direct economic impacts (wage levels, local/non-local employment) - Indirect economic impacts (tourism, labour market pressures, retail expenditures) - Demographic impacts (changes in pop size, characteristics, settlement patterns) - Housing impacts (housing demand, house prices) - Local service impacts - Health impacts (health services availability) - Socio-cultural impacts (lifestyle changes, threats to culture) |
|
|
What are complex situations? |
- uncertainty/surprise - give impression that there's no right way of looking at them & no right answer to problem - defies linear logic as it brings with it self-organization & feedback loops, where the effect is its own cause - characterized by situations where several diff logical future scenarios are possible - invokes alternative perspectives to understand |
|
|
What is systems thinking? |
- Offers insights + approaches for dealing with complexity - about patterns of relationships & how these translate to emergent behaviors - provides window on the world that informs our understanding of nature and relationship to it - provides frame for investigations and a language for discussing our understanding |
|
|
What is self-organization in systems thinking? |
- an important emergent property that a system has an identity of its own - e.g. a school of fish --> school as a whole moves on its own accord, and understanding this movement means understanding relationship maintained between individual fish, rather than independent behavior of the individual itself - About how coherent patterns of relationships are internally structured & developed over time |
|
|
What were the six requirements for conducting ecological studies in EIA in 1980? |
- identify VECs - define context for impact significance - establish boundaries for analysis - develop + implement a study strategy - specify nature of predictions - undertake monitoring |
|
|
How is scientific practice still inadequate for EIA? |
- lack of scientific support from outside - over expectation of what science within is capable of - science outside is needed to create, test, and refine robust models for predicting ecological effects of dev - science inside is needed to make specific impact predictions to inform decision-makers of the potential ecological consequences of dev alternatives, as well as to measure environmental responses following dev start-up for the purpose of model evaluation and refinement |
|
|
What does Boyer say that professors should engage in? |
Scholarship of: - discovery --> establishing relationships b/w variables within a discipline - Integration --> investigating relationships among variables - Application --> scientific relationships are applied in search of good solutions to probs |
|
|
What are the two things needed to raise the quality of science in EIA |
- acceptance that the situation needs to change, all actors involved must want improvement - expectations for how good EIA science will develop needs to be reformulated |
|
|
What are the 6 problems with CEA in Canada? |
1. Application of CEA in Project EIA - not well suited for inclusion in project-level EIA - EIA practitioners have to have CEA assess effects of other projects, including future projects that may be uncertain - even if plans exist, may be poorly specified with respect to implementation details, or kept confidential by plan owners 2. Focus on project approval - in theory EIA is about enviro protection and VEC sustainability, but in practice it is about project approval - proponents may see EIA as a hurdle to jump - environment is secondary - do only what they must in EIA 3. Ecological Impact Thresholds - lack of understanding ecological impact thresholds - thresholds are difficult, almost impossible, to determine 4. Separation of cumulative effects from project-specific impacts - approaches to CEA analysis were insufficiently distinct from EIA analysis - EIA should be dominated by cumulative effects approach b/c cumulative effects are the only real affects worth assessing in most EIAs 5. Interpretation of cumulative effects - CEA still represents mystery to most EIA practitioners 6. Future Dev - practitioners minimizing effort associated with future dev - not looking far enough into future, looking too narrowly, trying to predict most likely dev scenario --> future is doomed |
|
|
What are the four solution options for CEA? |
1. Including CEA consideration in terms of reference 2. Using context scoping (screening VECs for potential exposure to cumulative stress) 3. Conducting more follow-up studies 4. Linking project and regional CEAs |
|
|
What are fly in fly out impacts? |
- mining operations working in remote locations where company provides accommodations and a work roster based on a fixed number of days at the work site and fixed number of days at home |
|
|
What does scoping determine? |
- important issues/parameters that should be addressed in an EA - establishes spatial/temporal boundaries - focuses the assessment on relevant issues/concerns |
|
|
What are the two types of scoping? |
closed scoping: content/scope predetermined by law - modifications through closed consultations open scoping: content/scope determined by transparent process based on consultations with various interests/publics |
|
|
What are the functions of scoping? |
- ensuring input from potential stakeholders early in the process - identifying public/scientific concerns/values - evaluating concerns to focus assessment + provide coherent view of issues - ensuring key issues are identified and given appropriate degree of attention - reducing volume of unnecessarily comprehensive data/info - avoiding a standard inventory format for EIA that may miss key elements or issues - defining spatial/temporal/other boundaries and limits of assessment - ensuring that EIA is designed to max info quality for decision-making purposes |
|
|
What are components/elements of a system? |
Objects which make up the system - a class of objects which perform the same function or same purpose |
|
|
What is structure of a system? |
The way in which the components are interconnected, which is described by system diagrams |
|
|
What is a system boundary? |
An imaginary line which separates the objects which are in the systems from the objects in the environment |
|
|
What is the environment of a system? |
A set of objects which affect the system but are not part of it |
|
|
What are system types? |
The taxonomy perspectives from which we can view the studied system |
|
|
What are system scales/hierarchy? |
The taxonomy of nested super-systems and sub-systems of the studied systems |
|
|
What is the difference between 'Need for' and 'Purpose of'? |
Need for = the particular problem or opp that project is intending to address/satisfy (e.g. need for proposed electrical generation station is the demand for electricity) Purpose of = what is intended to be achieved by actually carrying out the project (e.g. To supply cost-efficient, reliable electricity to neighborhoods that is profitable to the company) |
|
|
What is the difference between 'alternatives to' and 'alternative means'? |
Alternatives to = functionally different ways of meeting the need and purpose of the project - limited to the 'no action' alternative Alternative means = different options for carrying out a project - could be diff engineering design or location |
|
|
What are VECs? |
Valued Ecosystem Components: aspects of the environment, physical and human, considered to be important from scientific or public perspectives, therefore requiring detailed consideration - is it likely to be affected by project activities? - is it possible to predict impacts on the VEC or on indicators or to relate either quantitatively or qualitatively project-induced change to VEC conditions? |
|
|
What are two types of info in spatial boundaries |
Activity info: characterizes types of effects a project might generate Receptor info: processes resulting from such effects |
|
|
What is an impact matrix? |
Identifies project activities and interactions with environmental components or VECs and characterizes the nature of them |
|
|
What are the scoping requisites? |
- Describe proposed activity - Scope project alternatives - Identify VECs - Delineate the assessment spatial and temporal boundaries - Establish environmental baseline and trends - Identify potential impacts + issues of concern |
