Challenges for social impact assessment in coastal regions: A case study of the Tomakomai CCS Demonstration Project

Abstract

This paper assesses challenges for social impact assessment (SIA) for coastal and offshore infrastructure projects, using the case study of the Tomakomai Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Demonstration Project in Hokkaido, Japan. Interest in SIA and linked concepts such as social licence to operate is growing, yet marine environments also have potential to raise additional complexity in project governance. Drawing on qualitative research conducted in Tomakomai and Japan more widely across the project development and implementation phase, the paper argues that building an understanding of the social, cultural and historical relationship between the community, industry and the sea is crucial to understanding the neutral or cautiously supportive response of the citizens and stakeholders in Tomakomai to the project. Moreover, effective SIA in coastal regions needs to find a way to account for-or at least make visible-these complex relations between society and the sea. Based on the findings, it is suggested that developers or policymakers overseeing SIA in coastal regions ought to pay extra attention to the extent to which developments like CCS are viewed by communities as 'new' as opposed to a continuation of existing activities in the sea; to the importance of engagement on monitoring during the project operations phase; and to the noneconomic values such as pride and identity which communities and stakeholders may derive from the sea. Keywords carbon dioxide capture and storage; coastal communities; social impact assessment; social licence to operate; Tomakomai CCS Demonstration Project. Highlights  Evaluate social dimensions of Japan's first large-scale CCS demonstration;  Refine extant social impact assessment principles with specific coastal focus;  Cultural and historical relationship with sea key to understanding community 2 response;  Coastal SIA needs to specifically accommodate community relations to sea;  Complexity in marine environments makes careful in-depth SIA even more important.

Bursting bubbles: can experiments and analogues help stakeholders and the public visualise risks?

“…Data visualisation ought to be considered one part of demonstrating competence, alongside factors such as trust-and relationshipbuilding. For the Tomakomai CCS project in Japan, for example, it is arguably the combination of in-depth data and its presentation by local government officials and scientists viewed as trustworthy that has helped the project operators demonstrate credibility in monitoring and management of the storage site (Mabon et al, 2017).…”

What natural and social scientists need from each other for effective marine environmental assessment: Insights from collaborative research on the Tomakomai CCS Demonstration Project

“…Accordingly, closer collaboration included a social science researcher undertaking a two-month secondment to one of the natural science-focused research institutions involved in monitoring above the storage site; the core research team working together to interview stakeholders in Tomakomai (with interview campaigns in 2016, 2017 and 2020); and expansion of the research to include documentary and archival research to understand environmental history and climate change responses in Tomakomai more widely (see e.g. Mabon et al, 2017;Mabon, 2020). As outlined in Sections 3 and 4, the research team were motivated to work more closely together to access key and/or hard to reach stakeholders (e.g.…”

“…This paper proposes practical principles for how social and natural science disciplines can work collaboratively for effective impact assessment in the marine environment. There is welldocumented interest in assessing social as well as environmental impacts of new marine and coastal developments (Mabon et al, 2017;Vanclay, 2012); and in developing more refined impact assessments, deliberative processes and valuation systems (Skorstad et al, 2018). This reflects a broader understanding that attaining resilient and sustainable forms for coastal communities requires attention to both ecological and socio-economic elements (e.g.…”

Bringing social and cultural considerations into environmental management for vulnerable coastal communities: Responses to environmental change in Xuan Thuy National Park, Nam Dinh Province, Vietnam

“…Whilst 40% of the world population lives in coastal regions (UN, 2017), policy and governance procedures to balance these competing pressures are far less developed for marine environments than they are for land (e.g. Boyes and Elliot, 2014;Mabon et al, 2017). Coastal communities may be more exposed to environmental hazards, and can also be more marginalised socially and politically due to their peripheral location (Allen, 2006;Chang et al, 2015).…”