Impact Assessment

Offers solutions and best practices to respond to recurrentproblems and contemporary challenges in the field
Since the publication of the first edition of EnvironmentalImpact Assessment in 2003, both the practice and theory ofimpact assessment have changed substantially. Not only has thefield been subject to a great deal of new regulations andguidelines, it has also evolved tremendously, with a greateremphasis on strategic environmental, sustainability, and humanhealth impact assessments. Moreover, there is a greater call forimpact assessments from a global perspective. This SecondEdition, now titled Impact Assessment to reflect itsbroader scope and the breadth of these many changes, offersstudents and practitioners a current guide to today's impactassessment practice.
Impact Assessment begins with an introduction and then achapter reviewing conventional approaches to the field. Next, thebook is organized around recurrent problems and contemporarychallenges in impact assessment process design and management,enabling readers to quickly find the material they need to solvetough problems, including:
* How to make impact assessments more influential, rigorous,rational, substantive, practical, democratic, collaborative,ethical, and adaptive
* How each problem and challenge-reducing process would operateat the regulatory and applied levels
* How each problem can be approached for different impactassessment types--sustainability assessment, strategicenvironmental assessment, project-level EIA, social impactassessment, ecological impact assessment, and health impactassessment
* How to link and combine impact assessment processes to operatein situations with multiple overlapping problems, challenges, andimpact assessment types
* How to connect and combine impact assessment processes
Each chapter first addresses the topic with current theory andthen demonstrates how that theory is applied, presentingrequirements, guidelines, and best practices. Summaries at the endof each chapter provide a handy tool for structuring the design andevaluation of impact assessment processes and documents. Readerswill find analyses and new case studies that address such issues asmulti-jurisdictional impact assessment, climate change, cumulativeeffects assessment, follow-up, capacity building, interpretingsignificance, and the siting of major industrial and wastefacilities.
Reflecting current theory and standards of practice, ImpactAssessment is appropriate for both students and practitionersin the field, enabling them to confidently respond to a myriad ofnew challenges in the field.