ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the main characteristics of social impact assessment, the main methods used in SIA, the experiences gained from SIA in Europe, North America and a number of developing countries, and what pitfalls have been encountered, the state-of-the-art in SIA, normative and practical aspects of SIA give rise to concern. It also utilizes the scientific convention of having a free-ranging discussion of the implications of the results of a study, which follows the strict reporting of those results. The chapter assumes that policy-makers, that is, central actors, are willing to have SIA projects done and to use all or part of the outcomes. The chapter describes a typical for scientific research focusing on relatively open systems showing a relatively large amount of systems noise. The chapter explores to stimulate positive impacts and to mitigate negative impacts.
