What are VECs? (why are we identifying them?)
Any aspect of enviro considered important by proponent, public, Aboriginals, scientists, or govt.
- importance is determined on basis of cultural values or scientific concerns
- ex. air, water, pop, health, employment, noise - ultimately varies by project
What are VEC indicators?
Critical to understanding change in conditions and important to providing warning of potential adverse effects.
- often VECs not measurable on their own, so indicators needed
- ex. surface water quality indicators: P concentration, benthic invertebrate abundance
What types of assessment boundaries are there?
- spatial
- temporal
- jurisdictional
Explain spatial boundaries in scoping
Focus on importance of scale (the larger the area, the less detail)
- enviro receptors should be examined at diff geo scales to help understand project interactions
- proponents try to limit boundaries to reduce scope of impacts
Explain temporal boundaries in scoping
Includes past, present, future (the end of operational life - decomissioning and rehab)
- diff stakeholders have diff views on boundaries (ex. proponent vs. first nations)
Explain jurisdictional boundaries in scoping
Impacts are spread across diff administrative boundaries
- consider: who are decision makers? who responsible for managing project impacts?
What is establishing enviro baseline?
Past, present, and future state of env without proposed project
- conditions over time and space are determined and existing info should be gathered based on indicators
Must consider:
- what do we know about the baseline now?
- what are the relevant background conditions?
- what are the likely future conditions?
What is identifying potential impacts/issues?
Common method used is an impact matrix to project activities/components on one axis and potentially affected VECs on another (displays cause and effect).
- number values are based on the impact
What are the main points on scoping?
- ensures all necessary factors are considered
- narrows scope to focus on most important issues
- an ongoing activity
In impact prediction/evaluation, what is significance?
- subjective/value-dependent notion determined by importance attached to impacts
What is the equation for impact significance?
impact significance = impact characteristic * impact importance
What are the impact characteristics?
- direction (beneficial, neutral, adverse)
- direct/indirect (first order vs. second order - ex. hydro directly impacts fish pops)
- reversible/irreversible (ex. traffic congestion vs. species extinction)
- duration (short or long term - ex. construction noise vs erosion)
- magnitude (low, moderate, high)
- spatial extent (local, regional, national)
- temporal (temporary or continuous)
- nature of the impact (incremental, additive, synergistic, antagonistic)
Explain the diff nature of impact conditions
- incremental: ? Ex. chem A has 10% fish mortality, chem B has 10% fish mortality, when released together: - additive: 20% mortality - synergistic: more than 20% mortality - antagonistic: less than 20% mortality
What are the CEAA 2012 steps to impact prediction?
- are effects adverse?
- are effects significant?
- are significant adverse effects likely?
What are common methods used in EA?
- checklists
- matrices
- networks
- modelling
- GIS
- lab analysis/field measurements
- expert judgement
- examination of similar projects
- scorecards
How are checklists used in EA (types)?
- pros: easy to understand, cost-effective, summarizes key impacts
- cons: doesn’t distinguish b/w direct/indirect impacts, doesn’t link cause and effect
Types: - simple/screening: identify impacts (no cause and effect though)
- questionnaires
- weighted-scales (rankings)
How are matrices used in EA (types)?
- pros: identifies cause-effect, displays EA results, identifies magnitude
- cons: hard to distinguish b/w direct and indirect
Types: - simple: is action to have impact on identified VEC
- magnitude: describes impacts according to magnitude/importance
- distributional impact: identifies who might lose and who might gain from potential impacts
How are networks used in EA?
- pros: identifies cause-effect, incorporates multiple variables, handles (in)direct impacts
- cons: can be complex, doesn’t explain significance/mganitude
- recognizes enviro systems consist of complex web of relationships (cause and effect)
How is simulation modelling used in EA?
- simplified rep of system under investigation commonly used
- captures potential relationships within environment (cause-effect) and is good visual tool for communication
- data demanding, complex, and time consuming though
- ex. groundwater contamination flows
How is GIS used in EA?
- computer based method of recording, analyzing, combining and displaying geo info
- excellent for impact identification
- costly to operate and heavily relies on data
- capable of handling large data sets
- good siting tool (ex. finding pipeline route)
- limitations: impacts’ likelihood and lack of data for remote areas
