ABSTRACT
We have discussed in some detail a wide range of types of impacts, reducing them to relatively simple logical processes with a potential for automation as expert systems. Although not all the standard areas of impact assessment have been covered, there has been enough variety to illustrate most of the problems and issues involved when “translating” expert behaviour and judgement into a simple logical process that a non-expert can follow. The logic followed in the discussion so far can be summed up in Figure 12.1, showing the structure of what could be some kind of “super expert system” to deal with the whole process of impact assessment. After the initial stages focussed on the need for impact assessment and the areas of impact to be studied (discussed in Chapter 6), the logic breaks out into many different lines of enquiry for the different areas of impact, as discussed in subsequent chapters. Finally, all the “threads” are joined again to arrive at some form of overall assessment, and the whole discussion is presented in a report containing the main points of all the areas discussed before (covered in Chapter 11), and the report itself is also the subject of scrutiny as part of the control process (Figure 12.1).
