ABSTRACT
The demographic and public service impacts of a repository are likely to be among the most discussed changes resulting from repository development. This chapter outlines the potential demographic and public service impacts of repositories, and examines those likely to be unique to repositories. It describes the alternatives for assessing such impacts, and explores the particular difficulties likely to affect such assessments for repositories. The chapter also provides an overview of demographic and public service impacts and impact assessment techniques and of the unique influences of repositories on such impacts and on their assessment. Demographic impacts are commonly discussed in terms of three dimensions: changes in population size, distribution, and composition. Demographic assessment techniques are a form of demographic population projection involving an attempt to project what an area's population size, distribution and composition will be, both with and without a repository or other development.
