The challenges and opportunities in cumulative effects assessment

Foley, Melissa M.; Mease, Lindley A.; Martone, Rebecca G.; Prahler, Erin; Morrison, Tiffany H.; Murray, Cathryn Clarke; Wojcik, Deborah J.

doi:10.1016/j.eiar.2016.06.008

Cited by 82 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…One option is to introduce a minimum set of parameters, whether affected or not by a specific project, that all monitoring programs must include (Ball et al 2013), and a reference site for monitoring that supports regional baseline characterization. Project-specific data collected by proponents can then provide higher resolution data to support regional baselines, allowing for local and regional trends to be distinguished (Willsteed et al 2016;Foley et al 2017). The ideal parameters would be adaptable to multiple spatial or temporal scales (CCME 2009;Burton et al 2014).…”

Section: Alignment Of Monitoring Efforts Across Programs and Scalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Quality Monitoring to Support Cumulative Effects Assessment and Decision Making in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories, Canada

Wong

Noble

Hanna

2019

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

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Project proponent‐ and government‐led environmental monitoring are required to identify, understand, and manage cumulative effects (CE), yet such monitoring initiatives are rarely mutually supportive. Notwithstanding the need for a more integrated and complementary approach to monitoring, monitoring efforts are often less effective than intended for addressing CE. This paper examines current monitoring programs in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories, Canada, based on 7 attributes: consistency, compatibility, observability, detectability, adaptability, accessibility, and usability. Results indicate a tenuous link between and across proponent‐led monitoring requirements under project‐specific water licenses and government‐led monitoring of regional baseline conditions. There is some consistency in what is monitored, but data are often incompatible, insufficient to understand baseline change, not transferable across projects or scales, inaccessible to end users, and ultimately unsuitable to understanding CE. Lessons from the Mackenzie Valley highlight the need for improved alignment of monitoring efforts across programs and scales, characterized by a set of common parameters that are most useful for early detection of cumulative change and supporting regulatory decisions at the project scale. This alignment must be accompanied by more open and accessible data for both proponents and regulators, while protecting the sensitivity of proprietary information. Importantly, there must be conceptual guidance for CE, such that the role of monitoring is clear, providing the types of CE questions to be asked, identifying the hypotheses to be tested, and ensuring timely and meaningful results to support regulatory decisions. © 2019 SETAC

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Section: Alignment Of Monitoring Efforts Across Programs and Scalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Quality Monitoring to Support Cumulative Effects Assessment and Decision Making in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories, Canada

Wong

Noble

Hanna

2019

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Quantifying the individual and combined impacts of stressors on populations and identifying their temporal and spatial scales of influence are key difficulties in assessing cumulative impacts and planning future landscapes that include and support viable wildlife populations (Foley et al. ). Although hundreds of studies have projected cumulative outcomes on population size and extinction risk, cumulative effects analyses are commonly developed to describe the effects of a single stressor.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influences of potential oil and gas development and future climate on Sage‐grouse declines and redistribution

Heinrichs

O’Donnell

Aldridge

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

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Multiple environmental stressors impact wildlife populations, but we often know little about their cumulative and combined influences on population outcomes. We generally know more about past effects than potential future impacts, and direct influences such as changes of habitat footprints than indirect, long‐term responses in behavior, distribution, or abundance. Yet, an understanding of all these components is needed to plan for future landscapes that include human activities and wildlife. We developed a case study to assess how spatially explicit individual‐based modeling could be used to evaluate future population outcomes of gradual landscape change from multiple stressors. For Greater Sage‐grouse in southwest Wyoming, USA, we projected oil and gas development footprints and climate‐induced vegetation changes 50 years into the future. Using a time‐series of planned oil and gas development and predicted climate‐induced changes in vegetation, we recalculated habitat selection maps to dynamically modify future habitat quantity, quality, and configuration. We simulated long‐term Sage‐grouse responses to habitat change by allowing individuals to adjust to shifts in habitat availability and quality. The use of spatially explicit individual‐based modeling offered a useful means of evaluating delayed indirect impacts of landscape change on wildlife population outcomes. The inclusion of movement and demographic responses to oil and gas infrastructure resulted in substantive changes in distribution and abundance when cumulated over several decades and throughout the regional population. When combined, additive development and climate‐induced vegetation changes reduced abundance by up to half of the original size. In our example, the consideration of only a single population stressor the final possible population size by as much as 50%. Multiple stressors and their cumulative impacts need to be broadly considered through space and time to avoid underestimating the impacts of multiple gradual changes and overestimating the ability of populations to withstand change.

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“…In addition, another critical aspect is the inconsistency and poor specificity in the principles, definitions and approaches adopted in the CEA applications (Judd et al, 2015;Jones, 2016;Stelzenmüller et al, 2018) 25 leading to large variation of CEA research agendas, creating difficulties in the comparing methods and outcomes and posing barriers to proper interpretation and communication of outputs (Stelzenmüller et al, 2018;Foley et al, 2017;Stock and Micheli, 2016). In order to address these issues, the improvement of a CEA framework within the principles of the ecosystem-based management 30 and environmental risk assessment is a promising approach (Judd et al, 2015;Stelzenmüller et al, 2018).…”

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confidence: 99%

A modelling framework for MSP-oriented cumulative effects assessment

Menegon

Depellegrin

Farella

et al. 2018

Ecological Indicators

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This research presents a comprehensive Cumulative Effects Assessment (CEA) based on the Tools4MSP modelling framework tested for the Italian Adriatic Sea. The CEA incorporates five methodological advancements: (1) linear and non-linear ecosystem response to anthropogenic pressures/effects, (2) modelling of additive, dominant and antagonist stressor effects, (3) implementation of a convolution distance model for stressor dispersion modelling, (4) application of a CEA backsourcing (CEA-B) model to identify and quantify sources of anthropogenic pressures affecting environmental components, based on the convolution distance model and (5) a novel CEA impact chain visualization tool based on Sankey diagrams. Results from CEA in the Italian Adriatic Sea show that highest CEA scores are located in the Northern Adriatic Sea (Port of Trieste and Venice Lagoon inlets) while abrasion, marine litter and selective extraction are the most pronounced pressures within the 12 nm. Results from CEA-B application for two case studies evidence a clear distinction among local human impacts (trawling, small scale fishery) versus long-range diffusive human impacts (underwater noise and marine litter). Results were discussed for their geospatial outcomes, importance for transboundary effects assessment, conservation planning and future application potentials.

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The challenges and opportunities in cumulative effects assessment

Cited by 82 publications

References 57 publications

Water Quality Monitoring to Support Cumulative Effects Assessment and Decision Making in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories, Canada

Water Quality Monitoring to Support Cumulative Effects Assessment and Decision Making in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories, Canada

Influences of potential oil and gas development and future climate on Sage‐grouse declines and redistribution

A modelling framework for MSP-oriented cumulative effects assessment

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