ABSTRACT
Socioeconomic impact assessments of western energy developments are conducted to meet a variety of different needs. Once the formal assessment process is required, socioeconomic impacts must be considered. This chapter summarizes the findings of the research project on assessment methodologies and describes implications for users of assessments. It identifies Specific impact issues, and describes alternative means for analyzing each issue area. The chapter explains limitations in the state-of-the-art in assessment. It focuses on the most common western energy development situation placing a new, relatively large-scale energy resource project in a sparsely populated area. Socioeconomic problems can lead to a host of factors that adversely affect worker productivity and project costs. Socioeconomic impacts are defined as externally induced changes from the state of society that exists or that otherwise could be expected to exist. The fundamental causes of most socioeconomic impacts are the magnitude and rate of increase in local payrolls and population which result from the project.
