Large-scale industrial and energy-development projects are profoundly affecting the social and economic climate of rural areas across the nation, creating a need for extensive planning information, both to prepare for the effects of such developments and to meet state and federal environmental impact assessment requirements. This book examines alternative methods of modelling the economic, demographic, public service, fiscal, and social impacts of major development projects. The authors provide a synthesis of the conceptual bases, estimation techniques, data requirements, and types of output available, focusing on models that address multiple impact dimensions and produce information at the county and subcounty levels. They also look at the kind of data each model produces in each impact category.
The authors of this book present a comprehensive analysis of impact management for such large-scale resource and industrial development projects as power plants, mines, and nuclear waste disposal facilities. An overall framework for designing an impact management program is presented and specific recommendations for implementing management measures are provided. This book is unique in that it provides a conceptual framework for choosing among alternative approaches in designing a management system, as well as offering practical guidance for implementing such systems.
Over the past thirty years we have witnessed a demand for resources such as minerals, oil, and gas, which is only set to increase. This book examines the relationship between Arctic communities and extractive resource development. With insights from leading thinkers in the field, the book examines this relationship to better understand what, if anything, can be done in order for the development of non-renewable resources to be of benefit to the long-term sustainability of these communities. The contributions synthesize circumpolar research on the topic of resource extraction in the Arctic, and highlight areas that need further investigation, such as the ability of northern communities to properly use current regulatory processes, fiscal arrangements, and benefit agreements to ensure the long-term sustainability of their culture communities and to avoid a new path dependency This book provides an insightful summary of issues surrounding resource extraction in the Arctic, and will be essential reading for anyone interested in environmental impact assessments, globalization and Indigenous communities, and the future of the Arctic region.
Assessing the social impact of rural development projects, this book aims to develop a cultural model based on theories of political economy. It presents case studies of rural projects that have affected such socially disadvantaged groups as laborers, women, ranchers, and ethnic minorities.
Since the 1960s the per capita incomes of the resource-poor countries have grown significantly faster than those of the resource-abundant countries. In fact, in recent years economic growth has been inversely proportional to the share of natural resource rents in GDP, so that the small mineral-driven economies have performed least well and the oil-driven economies worst of all. Yet the mineral-driven resource-rich economies have high growth potential because the mineral exportsboost their capacity to invest and to import."Resource Abundance and Economic Development" explains the disappointing performance of resource-abundant countries by extending the growth accounting framework to include natural and social capital. The resulting synthesis identifies two contrasting development trajectories: the competitive industrialization of the resource-poor countries and the staple trap of many resource-abundant countries. The resource-poor countries are less prone to policy failure than the resource-abundant countriesbecause social pressures force the political state to align its interests with the majority poor and follow relatively prudent policies. Resource-abundant countries are more likely to engender political states in which vested interests vie to capture resource surpluses (rents) at the expense of policycoherence. A longer dependence on primary product exports also delays industrialization, heightens income inequality, and retards skill accumulation. Fears of 'Dutch disease' encourage efforts to force industrialization through trade policy to protect infant industry. The resulting slow-maturing manufacturing sector demands transfers from the primary sector that outstrip the natural resource rents and sap the competitiveness of the economy.The chapters in this collection draw upon historical analysis and models to show that a growth collapse is not the inevitable outcome of resource abundance and that policy counts. Malaysia, a rare example of successful resource-abundant development, is contrasted with Ghana, Bolivia, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Argentina, which all experienced a growth collapse. The book also explores policies for reviving collapsed economies with reference to Costa Rica, South Africa, Russia and Central Asia. Itdemonstrates the importance of initial conditions to successful economic reform.
This book is intended for people interested in the environment, American society, rural and urban affairs, social impact assessment, and urban structures generally. It is also aimed at industrial and community planners and natural resource development firms, and formulated to implement a social policy concerning resource development and public agencies. "Ranching, Mining, and the Human Impact of Natural Resources Development "reports and observes people whose lives have been importantly affected by industrialization of rural communities in the American West. Such community change research is rarely done, but is invaluable for its real world groundings for a variety of social science theories. This study evolved out of ethnographic research of Western communities done over a full decade. Initially performed to meet requirements for social impact analysis, these studies have a much larger concern, namely identifying those areas of social change that contribute to the standing of small communities and how they persist in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds of the highly advanced urban complex. Professor Gold has written the first work which examines and accounts for the rise of local citizens' groups to a sense of being a community. Its account of this process covers both ordinarily slow and extraordinarily rapid areas of change in Western societies. It places the "Gemeinschaft "in proper perspective as the foundation upon which all other aspects of community social structure are built. In this regard it is a contribution to basic social theory, showing clearly the interrelation between small community and large society elements of the structure and functioning of community life. The work is subtly textured, combining structural, cultural, and symbolic perspectives in its account of the experience of the community of Sagebrush. Gold's monograph is one of a kind. No other book brings together the story of social effects of natural resource development projects in the American West.
