Essentials of SIA

Principles

1. Involve the diverse public. Since SIA is all about determining and addressing the concerns of the public, public involvement is essential. Public involvement should be an active and interactive process, in which members of the public are full participants in the SIA enterprise. The word "diverse" is important, too. It is essential that all potentially affected segments of the public have opportunities to participate. One aspect of SIA-social assessment-involves determining who the affected segments of the public are, and how they are organized. Public involvement must reach out to groups that do not routinely participate in government decision making because of cultural, linguistic, and economic barriers (see NEPA Call-In Fact Sheet "Public Participation in NEPA Review," February 1998).
2. Analyze impact equity. A basic part of SIA is to analyze who wins and who loses with each alternative considered. Under Executive Order 12898, it is especially important to analyze whether an alternative may have high and disproportionate adverse environmental or health effects on a low-income population or a minority population (see NEPA Call-In Fact Sheet "Environmental Justice"). Impact equity must be considered in close and sympathetic consultation with affected communities, neighborhoods, and groups, especially low-income and minority groups. Analysis should begin during scoping to ensure that important issues are not left out.
3. Focus the assessment. This is a matter of scoping. In the words of the Guidelines and Principles, SIA should take into account "concerns that really count, not those that are just easy to count." Scoping should seek to ascertain what issues are really important to affected communities and groups. The analysis should not focus only on economic issues or demographics or effects on city services because these are easy to quantify.
4. Identify methods and assumptions. The SIA must report the assumptions on which it is based, and describe methods employed.
5. Define significance. An SIA should discuss how the significance of a social variable or an impact is represented. In one case, emphasis may be given to impacts on agricultural land use and life style, while in another it may be given to impacts on small family-owned businesses in the vicinity of the project. There are obviously reasons for regarding one variable as more significant than another in a given case; these reasons need to be made explicit. Similarly, the reasons for considering one kind of impact to be more significant than another must be defined. The measures of significance derived from Section 40 CFR 1508.27 of the CEQ regulations (see NEPA Desk Guide Chapter 6) can be used to some extent to do this, but need to be adapted for relevance to social issues.
6. Provide feedback to project planners. An SIA should not be something a consulting firm does by itself, producing a final deliverable without prior client involvement. There should be active feedback between the SIA contractor and GSA planners throughout the assessment and planning processes. These processes should be carefully coordinated so that planners can be apprised of potential problems and opportunities before it is too late to do anything about them.
7. Use SIA practitioners. Trained social scientists, using appropriate professional methods, will provide the best results. Generally speaking, such practitioners include cultural anthropologists, sociologists, cultural geographers, and members of related professions. However, practitioners of other disciplines (e.g., economics, social history) may be effective social impact analysts if they have the right interests and training. On the other hand, some anthropologists and sociologists have no aptitude whatever for SIA. Selecting an SIA practitioner requires a close look at both training and experience, and seeking a good "fit" between the analyst and the issues to be analyzed.
8. Establish monitoring and mitigation programs. An SIA should not only provide GSA with an analysis of impacts, but also the basis for setting up programs to mitigate social impacts and monitor how these programs work.
9. Identify data sources. As a matter of good practice, an SIA should identify the sources upon which the analysis is based. In some cases, community groups may desire confidentiality, and such desires should be accommodated to the extent practicable and consistent with law (c.f. Section 304 of the National Historic Preservation Act where historic properties are involved). If confidentiality cannot be guaranteed, informants should be told as much, and given the opportunity not to provide information, or to provide it in abridged form.
10. Plan for gaps in data. No SIA collects all the data that might be desirable. An SIA should honestly identify gaps in its database-information that probably exists but that cannot be gathered, or questions and uncertainties about the data. In consultation with project planners, the SIA analyst should assess how critical the data are, and either develop strategies for obtaining them or establish ways to proceed toward a good decision without them.

Variables

1. Population characteristics. What is the current structure and organization of the potentially affected population? Is it stable or changing? Are there ethnic, economic, or social group distinctions within it? How are wealth, poverty, employment, and levels of income distributed through the population? How are people employed? How many and what kinds of people are unemployed, and in what kinds of activities (particularly those that may be affected by the action under review)? Are there seasonal changes, or other kinds of influx and outflow? What effects may the alternative action have on these factors?
2. Community and institutional structure. How are the affected communities organized, both explicitly (through systems of government, etc.) and informally (through voluntary associations, interest groups, etc.)? What are the employment and economic dimensions of each group? Are there existing economic, social, or cultural inequities among groups based on ethnicity or other factors? What experience do the various groups have with change? How are they linked (if at all) with regional and national organizations? Are they affected by local planning and zoning? What changes in these variables may be caused by the alternative action?
3. Political and social resources. How are power and authority distributed in the community, both formally and informally? Who are the relevant stakeholders? What are their interests? How do they organize and exercise power internally and externally? How do they react, or are they likely to react, to the alternative action?
4. Individual and family factors. What factors influence the daily lives of potentially affected members of the community? What are the patterns of family, friend, and acquaintance relationships? How stable is the pattern of residence? Do people in different groups feel that they currently have a satisfying way of life? Are they concerned about what the proposed action would do to their way of life, or interested in possibilities for improvement? What attitudes do people have toward risk, health, safety, and toward the proposed alternative? What values do they ascribe to the environment? Are they concerned about displacement or relocation, if this is perceived to be a possible result of the alternative? Do they trust their political and social institutions to handle change?
5. Community resources. How do people use the land, whether urban or rural? How do they use the natural environment? Are there subsistence uses? Spiritual uses? Recreational uses? Are there conflicts among any of these uses? Are there Native American (or other) sacred sites, or religious uses of the natural environment? Are there culturally valued neighborhoods, shopping areas, recreational areas, or gathering places? Are there culturally valued patterns of social interaction-clubs and other informal groups? Are there valued historic places, archeological sites, or collections of historical artifacts or documents? How available are housing and community services like police protection, water, sewer service, electricity, schools, libraries, and computer access facilities? How will the proposed action affect any of these variables?

Methods

Every SIA involves background research into what is known about the community-its size, social, educational, economic and ethnic makeup, and expressed cultural values and concerns. Consultation with experts is also usually needed.

Since the social and cultural aspects of the environment, and their values, exist largely in people's minds, interaction with affected communities and groups is essential. There are many methods of interacting with people and groups to learn about their society. A systematic interview program, working with group leaders, and participant observation (in which the analyst lives as part of the community while studying how it works) are among the methods that can be employed.

The choice of methods will necessarily reflect available time and funds, but it should also reflect the kind of community that is subject to effect, and what experts think are likely to be that community's social concerns.
 

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