ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the logic and process of Social impact assessment (SIA) and to link it into the larger context of environmental assessment. It discusses the terms of a historical overview of SIA and contemporary orientations toward the field, moves to conceptualizing social variables, overviews, theoretical perspectives, and concludes with a summary of the analysis process, with particular emphasis on federal agency application. SIA is a method of projecting social consequences of human actions that alter the environment. Social impact assessment has evolved over the past twenty-five years into a distinct and vital area of inquiry, one that explores the interrelationship between human-induced environmental change and its social effects. In North America, the importance of the social part of environmental impacts in project appraisal was highlighted by a 1974-78 inquiry regarding the Mackenzie Valley gas and oil pipeline through Canada.
