A complex network approach to environmental impact assessment

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a complex network methodology for the process of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) that limits subjectivity and reduces uncertainty by incorporating elements of complex systems theory in the stages of identification and assessment of the significance of environmental impacts. The proposed methodology reduces the sources of uncertainty, which emerge from the use of simplified models that analyse the environment-activity interactions in a unidirectional fashion. This proposal determines the significance of environmental impacts through multidirectional or complex causal relationships. Likewise, it limits the subjectivity of the evaluator by using these causality relationships instead of criteria based on the impacts’ attributes. The application of the proposed methodology demonstrates the advantages of (i) prioritizing the impacts according to their capacity to interact with other impacts, and (ii) the possibility to redirect the environmental management plans towards the prevention of impacts of higher complexity and to reduce the importance of derived impacts.

The application of the proposed methodology reveals that the percentage of irrelevant and moderate impacts is reduced, whereas the percentage of severe and critical impacts increase, in comparison to the conventional methodologies.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental impact evaluation
• complexity
• uncertainty
• subjectivity
• complex systems
• methodology
• modelling
• network

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/subjectivity.

2. In this paper we employ the Ucinet® program designed by Borgatti et al. (2002, https://sites.google.com/site/ucinetsoftware/home). However, the following options are also useful: Gephi (https://gephi.org/), Graph-tool (https://graph-tool.skewed.de/), Grapviz (http://graphviz.org/), JUNG (http://jung.sourceforge.net/), SocNetV (http://socnetv.org/), polinode (https://www.polinode.com/), NodeXL (https://archive.codeplex.com/?p=nodexl), among others.

Additional information

Funding

This paper gratefully acknowledges the support and funding from the following projects: ‘Environmental Impact Evaluation. Critical analysis and Improvement’, Cod. Hermes: 13129; ‘Tourism and Environment’, Cod. Hermes: 33576 Universidad Nacional de Colombia; and Project ECO2014–60058-P from the Ministry of Economy and CompetivenessMinistry of Economy and Competiveness of the Spanish Government through the FEDER European Union funding [Project ECO2014–60058-P]; Environmental Impact Evaluation. Critical analysis and Improvement; Tourism and Environment [Cod. Hermes: 13129; Cod. Hermes: 33576].