Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management

Site C Dam, a third large hydroelectric project on the Peace River, Canada, could potentially impact many Indigenous groups’ traditional ways of life and cultural lands. Through an explanatory case study, we evaluated the quality of the consultation process between three Indigenous groups and BC Hydro. We reviewed all relevant project documents ($n=68$) from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency Public Registry site to identify concerns of three affected Indigenous groups, then evaluated the Indigenous consultation process against best management practices (BMPs) of the International Association for Impact Assessment and the World Bank. Overall, BC Hydro did not apply the international BMPs effectively, due in part to the legislated process and the proponent’s own consultation approach, which limited the ability of the proponent to obtain free, prior, informed consent or identify resource rights. Our findings provide new insights into constraints affecting social impact assessments within and outside of Canada.

This study aims to measure welfare loss due to the high pollution levels of PM10 and NO₂ in the Seoul metropolitan area (SMA), Korea, which do not comply with the international standards, using spatial hedonic price models with apartment sales and air pollution data in 2010. The major findings were as follow: First, spatial hedonic model estimation reveals statistically significant negative signs for air pollution index for all submarkets, empirically presenting a trade-off between air pollution level and housing values. Second, the own-good quantity variable (air pollution index) has a statistically significant negative coefficient, indicating a diminishing marginal willingness to pay (MWTP) for additional level of the air pollution. Third, a worsening air quality brings about a substantial amount of welfare loss ($26.3 billion) among households residing in the SMA.

In the simultaneous design of product and its supply chain (SDPSC), the main criteria that is usually used to choose a product design is product cost since it is assumed that up to 70% of product cost is determined during the design phase. However, some researches recognise that product design decisions also affect the environmental impact of the product throughout its supply chain. Consequently, merging eco-design tools with the joint DPSC can develop a better understanding of the product and its environmental interactions to achieve green product development.

In this paper, we present a literature review dealing with environmental principles’ integration into the SDPSC, then we investigate tools for green product design selection using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM). We compare suitability of three selected MCDM methods, namely Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE), and Multi-Attribute Value Theory (MAVT). Two case studies were selected from literature, and a sensitivity analysis is applied for each selected method. Results suggest that although all methods are convenient and can be used in practice, TOPSIS method was more stable towards weighting changes.

Most development activities have individually minor impact, but collectively over time their impact on the environment is more substantial. The available environmental circumstances in different locations show the important position of cumulative effects (CEs) in environmental studies. Many sources notified the complexity of cumulative effects assessment (CEA) in practice and identification of CEs in assessments. Maybe it is because the essence of impact assessments have to focus on future consequences, and this situation is complex substantive. Also, a lack of knowledge with respect to how to include CEs and lack of clear regulations concerning how this should be done are the most complex criteria of CEA which have been mentioned by CEA practitioners. Most guides and regulations are considered in the performance of CEA during environmental impact assessment (EIA) of projects. Also, there is an important consideration regarding performance of CEA in strategic environmental assessments (SEAs) process, and some reasons present it. In the section of methods and tools used for CEA, risk assessment approaches and modeling are the most used innovative methodologies for the improvement of CEA in recent times. Generally, improvement in performance and knowledge of CEA is noticeable in recent years.