A framework for assessing cumulative effects in watersheds: An introduction to Canadian case studies

Dubé, Monique G.; Duinker, Peter N.; Greig, Lorne A.; Carver, Martin; Servos, Mark R.; McMaster, Mark E.; Noble, Bram; Schreier, Hans; Jackson, L. M.; Munkittrick, Kelly R.

doi:10.1002/ieam.1418

Cited by 58 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…P32: CEA evaluates effects on specific "valued ecosystem components" (VECs) or significant ecological features 14 (e.g., Beanlands and Duinker 1983;Fisheries and Oceans Canada 2004, 2014, which are considered to be 15 important ecosystem attributes (Bérubé 2007;Gunn and Noble 2009;Canter and Ross 2010;Canter and Atkinson 2011;Dubé et al 2013). VECs can be "physical things (e.g., a fish population), ecological processes (e.g., C sequestration), and even abstract concepts, such as ecological integrity or water quality (Damman et al 1995;Dubé et al 2013).…”

Section: Logical Connections Among Cea's Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cumulative effects assessment: theoretical underpinnings and big problems

Jones

2016

Environ. Rev.

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Cumulative effects assessment (CEA) is a sub-discipline of environmental impact assessment that is concerned with appraising the collective effects of human activities and natural processes on the environment. Aspirations for CEA have been expressed by many authors since 1969, when the foundation of environmental appraisal was laid by the US National Environmental Policy Act. This paper's purposes are (i) to review aspirations for CEA, relative to current practice; and (ii) to fully explain and critique the logic that connects CEA's operational steps and underlying philosophies. A literature review supports the following statements: Some conceptualizations emphasize the delivery of information to support decision making as the key purpose of CEA; others deem collaboration, debate, and learning as most important. Consensus on CEA's operational steps has been reached, but each step requires practitioners to make analytical decisions (e.g., about the scope of issues to include or the time horizon to consider) and objective rules for how to approach those decisions are lacking. Numerical methods for assessing cumulative effects are largely available, meaning that CEA's biggest problems are not scientific. CEA cannot succeed without substantive public engagement, monitoring, and adaptive management. CEA is best undertaken regionally, rather than project-byproject. CEA and planning are complementary, and should be merged. In its most enlightened form, CEA is a useful tool for ensuring that human undertakings ultimately conform to Earth's finite biosphere, but current practice falls short of the ideal, and CEA's logical derivation is not entirely sound. As regards CEA's big problems, sustainability has not been defined clearly enough to make criteria for judging the significance of cumulative effects indisputable; legal, regulatory, and institutional frameworks are poorly aligned for CEA; and objective criteria for judging the adequacy of CEA's scope, scale, and thresholds do not exist, which makes the question of how to provide general guidance to practitioners intractable. Recommendations call for sustainability goals to be clearly expressed as measurable targets. Furthermore, precaution in human enterprise should be exercised by avoiding, minimizing, restoring, and offsetting negative cumulative effects. CEA can assist by quantifying and optimizing trade-offs.Key words: environmental impact assessment, planning, environmental management, sustainability, conceptual model, precautionary principle.Résumé : L'évaluation des effets cumulatifs (EEC) est une sous-discipline de l'évaluation de l'impact sur l'environnement qui porte sur l'évaluation des effets collectifs des activités humaines et des processus naturels sur l'environnement. De nombreux auteurs ont exprimé leurs aspirations quant à l'EEC depuis 1969, le moment où les fondements de l'évaluation environnementale ont été jetés par le « National Environmental Policy Act » aux États-Unis. Les buts de cette étude sont (i) d'examiner les aspirations quant à...

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Section: Logical Connections Among Cea's Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…VECs can be "physical things (e.g., a fish population), ecological processes (e.g., C sequestration), and even abstract concepts, such as ecological integrity or water quality (Damman et al 1995;Dubé et al 2013).…”

Section: Logical Connections Among Cea's Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cumulative effects assessment: theoretical underpinnings and big problems

Jones

2016

Environ. Rev.

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“…A key criticism of EIA-led CEA is the stressor-led approach, which assesses how single stressors arising from a proposed development together with the same stressor arising from proximal developments or activities impact a valued receptor (Squires & Dubé, 2013;Dubé et al, 2013;Duinker et al, 2012). Recognising that receptors experience multiple stressors and accumulate effects over broad temporal and spatial scales, EIAs thus struggle to assess how receptors respond to cumulative effects (Therivel & Ross, 2007;Duinker et al, 2012).…”

Section: Cumulative Effects Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cumulative effects assessment: proof of concept marine mammals

Piet¹,

Boon²,

Jongbloed³

et al. 2017

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Piet, G.J 1 ., Boon, A 2 . Jongbloed, R 1 ., van der Meulen, M 2 ., Tamis, J 1 . van der Wal, J.T 1 .Teal ,L SummaryThis development of the framework and approach for a Cumulative Effects Assessment (CEA) is based on a literature review. From this we adopted several definitions that guided this development.• A CEA is understood as "a systematic procedure for identifying and evaluating the significance of effects from multiple sources/activities and for providing an estimate on the overall expected impact to inform management measures. The analysis of the causes (source of pressures and effects), pathways and consequences of these effects on receptors is an essential and integral part of the process".• Cumulative effects are "the incremental impact of the action when added to the other past, present and reasonably foreseeable actions". In this approach we only consider a (cumulative) effect significant if it has an impact on a relevant ecosystem component.Therefore our framework and approach for a CEA is based on all human activities that may have a potential impact on any relevant (from a policy perspective) ecosystem component at an appropriate spatio-temporal scale.The literature also identified some key challenges that need to be addressed for CEA to evolve into a consistent, appropriate tool to assist decision-making. These challenges included• A clear distinction of the receptor-led CEA from the dominating stressor-led Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) approaches and• Enabling CEA to provide ecosystem-relevant information at an appropriate regional scale.Therefore this CEA is explicitly developed to be a receptor-led and fully integrated framework, i.e.involving multiple occurrences of multiple pressures (from single and/or different sources) on multiple receptors, as opposed to other existing approaches dealing with only a subset of those pressures or receptors, hence our use of the phrase iCEA for integrated CEA. As a proof of concept for this iCEA we selected one receptor, the ecosystem component marine mammals.From the literature review we adopted (and slightly modified) a risk-based framework for defining and undertaking cumulative effects assessments which is aligned to the work in the OSPAR IntersessionalCorrespondence Group on Cumulative (ICG-C) Effects and the ICES Working Group on IntegratedAssessments of the North Sea (WGINOSE), thereby ascertaining this framework and approach is wellplaced within ongoing international North Sea initiatives. Furthermore, the CEA framework in this study should contribute to national North Sea policymaking, with a specific focus on the Marine Strategy framework Directive (MSFD). This literature review is presented in Chapter 1.Our iCEA framework consists of four phases each corresponding to a chapter in this report:1. Conception. This is where purpose and scope are defined (see Chapter 2). 3. Execution (importance). Here we establish the relative importance of each impact chain using a risk-based approach that calculates "Impact Risk", i.e. the contribution of...

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“…A watershed scale is the intuitive scale for environmental assessments and cumulative effects assessments (Zedler 2003), especially for salmon-bearing watersheds. Indeed, recently there have been several watershed-level cumulative effects efforts across Canada, but it is uncertain whether these frameworks will be incorporated into decision-making and policy (Dubé et al 2013). (Nilsson et al 2005) and then analyzed.…”

Section: Opportunity and Challenge: Matching Scales Of Assessments Tomentioning

confidence: 99%

Bidirectional connectivity in rivers and implications for watershed stability and management

Moore

2015

Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci.

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River networks are connected in both upstream and downstream directions on large spatial scales by movement of water, materials, and animals. Here I examine the implications of these linkages for the stability, productivity, and management of watersheds and their migratory fishes. I use simple simulations of watershed alteration to illustrate that degradation can erode the productivity and stability of both upstream and downstream fisheries. Through analysis of an existing global dataset on rivers, I found that larger rivers tend to be more fragmented than smaller rivers. I offer three challenges and opportunities for the future management of watersheds. First, given that human impacts can spread up and down rivers, there is a need to align the scales of impact assessments with the natural scale of river systems. Second, free-flowing rivers naturally dampen variability; thus, the conservation of connectivity, habitat, and biodiversity represents a key opportunity to sustain the processes that confer stability. Third, watersheds represent natural units of social-ecological systems; watershed governance would facilitate reciprocal feedbacks between people and ecosystems and enable more social-ecological resilience.Résumé : Les réseaux hydrographiques sont connectés tant vers l'amont que vers l'aval à de grandes échelles spatiales par le déplacement de l'eau, de matières et d'animaux. J'examine les conséquences de ces liens sur la stabilité, la productivité et la gestion des bassins versants et de leurs poissons migrateurs. J'emploie des simulations simples de l'altération des bassins versants pour illustrer le fait que la dégradation peut éroder la productivité et la stabilité des ressources halieutiques tant vers l'amont que vers l'aval. En analysant un ensemble existant de données planétaires sur les rivières, j'ai constaté que les grandes rivières ont tendance à être plus fragmentées que les rivières plus petites. Je propose trois défis et occasions à saisir pour la gestion future des bassins versants. D'abord, étant donné que les impacts humains peuvent se propager vers l'amont et l'aval des rivières, il est nécessaire que l'échelle d'évaluation des impacts coïncide avec l'échelle naturelle du réseau hydrographique. Deuxièmement, les rivières au libre cours atténuent naturellement la variabilité, de sorte que la conservation de la connectivité, des habitats et de la biodiversité représente une occasion clé pour soutenir des processus qui confèrent de la stabilité. Troisième-ment, les bassins versants constituent des unités naturelles de systèmes socioécologiques; la gouvernance des bassins versants faciliterait des rétroactions réciproques entre les humains et les écosystèmes et permettrait une plus grande résilience socioécologique. [Traduit par la Rédaction]

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A framework for assessing cumulative effects in watersheds: An introduction to Canadian case studies

Cited by 58 publications

References 34 publications

Cumulative effects assessment: theoretical underpinnings and big problems

Cumulative effects assessment: theoretical underpinnings and big problems

Cumulative effects assessment: proof of concept marine mammals

Bidirectional connectivity in rivers and implications for watershed stability and management

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