ABSTRACT
This chapter examines factors influencing the usefulness of socioeconomic impact assessments in policy development and planning for areas affected by resource development projects. Numerous factors influence the extent to which an assessment methodology can or will be utilized by decision makers. It appears, however, that two considerations are of over-riding importance in this regard: the compatibility of the assessment's focus with the needs of decision making; and the decision makers' confidence in the methodology. If impact assessment systems are to play a major role in shaping important decisions, users must understand their capabilities and inherent limitations and must have confidence in their reliability in simulating the behavior of the reference system. Rapid growth resulting from large-scale development projects has created growing interest in developing integrated socioeconomic impact assessment systems. A number of such systems have been developed, and they appear to have considerable potential for providing information useful to decision makers.
