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    • Issue #16 SIA for rural resilience and wellbeing >
      • SIA for rural resilience and wellbeing: Intro
      • The drivers and agents of on-farm change in Aotearoa New Zealand
      • Social-ecological assessment for remote and island communities
      • The Impact of Substandard Rural Housing on Resilience and Wellbeing in Te Tai Tokerau
      • Success factors for planning regeneration in rural areas
    • Issue #15 Economic methods and Impact Assessment >
      • Economic methods in impact assessment: an introduction
      • The Nature of Economic Analysis for Resource Management
      • The State-of-the-Art and Prospects: Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services in Environmental Impact Assessment
      • Economic impact assessment and regional development: reflections on Queensland mining impacts
      • Fonterra’s policy on economic incentives for promoting sustainable farming practices
    • Issue #14 Impact assessment for infrastructure development >
      • Impact assessment for infrastructure development - an introduction
      • Place Matters: The importance of geographic assessment of areas of influence in understanding the social effects of large-scale transport investment in Wellington
      • Unplanned Consequences? New Zealand's experiment with urban (un)planning and infrastructure implications
      • Reflections on infrastructure, Town and Country planning and intimations of SIA in the late 1970s and early 1980s
      • SIA guidance for infrastructure and economic development projects
      • Scoping in impact assessments for infrastructure projects: Reflections on South African experiences
      • Impact Assessment for Pacific Island Infrastructure
    • Issue #13 Health impact assessment: practice issues >
      • Introduction to health impact assessment: practice issues
      • International Health Impact Assessment – a personal view
      • Use of Health Impact Assessment to develop climate change adaptation plans for health
      • An integrated approach to assessing health impacts
      • Assessing the health and social impacts of transport policies and projects
      • Whither HIA in New Zealand….or just wither?
    • Issue #12 Risk Assessment: Case Studies and Approaches >
      • Introduction
      • Risk Assessment and Impact Assessment : A perspective from Victoria, Australia
      • The New and Adaptive Paradigm Needed to Manage Rising Coastal Risks
      • Reflections on Using Risk Assessments in Understanding Climate Change Adaptation Needs in Te Taitokerau Northland
      • Values-Based Impact Assessment and Emergency Management
      • Certainty about Communicating Uncertainty: Assessment of Flood Loss and Damage
      • Improving Understanding of Rockfall Geohazard Risk in New Zealand
      • Normalised New Zealand Natural Disaster Insurance Losses: 1968-2019
      • Houston, We Have a Problem - Seamless Integration of Weather and Climate Forecast for Community Resilience
      • Innovating with Online Data to Understand Risk and Impact in a Data Poor Environment
    • Impact Connector #11 Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, and Impact Assessment: views from the Pacific >
      • Introduction
      • Climate change adaptation and mitigation, impact assessment, and decision-making: a Pacific perspective
      • Climate adaptation and impact assessment in the Pacific: overview of SPREP-sponsored presentations
      • Land and Sea: Integrated Assessment of the Temaiku Land and Urban Development Project in Kiribati
      • Strategic Environmental Assessment: Rising to the SDG Challenge
      • Coastal Engineering for Climate Change Resilience in Eastern Tongatapu, Tonga
      • Climate-induced Migration in the Pacific: The Role of New Zealand
    • Impact Connector #10 Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation >
      • Introduction
      • Is a “just transition” possible for Māori?
      • Adapting to Climate Change on Scale: Addressing the Challenge and Understanding the Impacts of Asia Mega-Cities
      • How responding to climate change might affect health, for better or for worse
      • Kanuka, Kereru and carbon capture - Assessing the effects of a programme taking a fresh look at the hill and high country land resource
      • Wairoa: Community perceptions of increased afforestation
      • Te Kākahu Kahukura Ecological Restoration project: A story within a story
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Risk Assessment and Impact Assessment: A perspective from Victoria, Australia



​Jack Krohn

​ 
FEIANZ, Senior Impact Assessor, Impact Assessment Unit, Statutory Planning Services, Department of Environment, Land Water and Planning 
Victoria State Government, Australia 
If you haven’t seen it, have a look at Stephen Fry’s and Hugh Lawrie’s hardware shop sketch. 

Customer Fry is going through his list of requirements such as grollings, frotting pencils (felching pens being out of stock) and a spill-trunion and shopkeeper Lawrie (after clarifying whether the spill-trunion should be bevelled or otherwise) lifts the items from the relevant shelf. It’s a celebration of jargon.
Thumbnail image from the sketch video
​Subject matter experts love their jargon. Professions, hobbies, pastimes have their own words that have no utility outside that construct. You can exclude, or at least baffle, outsiders with terms that they don’t understand. But it gets more confusing when a word that is allocated a meaning that is specific to a particular context also serves another purpose (or range of purposes) outside that context.
 
Impact assessment as a discipline has its own modest share of jargon. We talk of screening, scoping, review, and of impacts with meanings that are quite specific in the impact assessment context. A discussion about any of those aspects depends for its usefulness on the participants having the same understanding of the key word in the context of the discussion. As a birder as well as an impact assessor, I can move effortlessly between the very different notions of “scoping” a distant bird and “scoping” an impact statement.
 
“Risk” is commonly mentioned in the context of impact assessment. In Victoria’s Ministerial guidelines for assessment of environmental effects under the Environment Effects Act 1978, in fact, “risk” appears 31 times[1]. Confusion can arise because the word is used in subtly different ways at different points in the document. So, what are these different nuances that “risk” is meant to convey?

There is the notion of a “risk-based approach”, to ensure that required assessment, including the extent of investigations, is proportionate to the risk [sorry!] of adverse effects. There is a definition of “potential effects” as including potential changes or risks to environmental assets. There is risk as the potential for an adverse effect, as a product of likelihood and magnitude, which in turn brings in the concept of uncertainty. And there is “risk to [human] health”, in a discussion about hazards. One recent Victorian Environment Effects Statement (EES) included a chapter on “Hazard and risk”, relating specifically to dangers on human health and well-being, including due to a potential catastrophic event such as an explosion.
Most proponents preparing EESs in Victoria undertake some form of environmental risk assessment. This is valuable provided it contributes to an enhanced understanding of potential environmental effects, because that is the explicit focus of the Environment Effects Act – the potential for significant effects on the environment[2]. However, while “impacts” and “effects” can be regarded as jurisdictional synonyms, the discipline of environmental impact assessment is not characterised by the same elements as environmental risk assessment.  
while “impacts” and “effects” can be regarded as jurisdictional synonyms, the discipline of environmental impact assessment is not characterised by the same elements as environmental risk assessment.
 Impact assessment is about identifying and characterising potential impacts on the environment (which in Victoria is defined in the Ministerial guidelines as including social, economic, and other elements of human surroundings, not just the biophysical environment).  Those impacts might be unavoidable in the context of the project if it proceeds – for example, loss of native vegetation from the footprint of the pit for a proposed quarry.  Vegetation loss is therefore an impact that can be addressed with certainty – if the project proceeds, the vegetation will be removed. But what of the migratory wildlife that might not be present at the time of clearing, or the apex predator for which the site represents part of its home range? How do we characterise the potential for an adverse effect on those values?  What of the groundwater dependent ecosystem a little distance away, which might or might not be at risk due to groundwater drawdown as the pit is deepened and dewatering creates a cone of depression in the water table?  Aren’t those risks rather than impacts?
 
An impact is no less an impact for being uncertain. The referral criteria in Victoria’s Ministerial guidelines (setting out thresholds for referral of projects for the Minister’s decision on the need or otherwise for an EES – screening, in a word) without exception refer to “potential” effects. The fact that an effect might or might not be realised does not make it any less an effect to be considered or assessed.  Environmental impacts or effects that are attended with some level of uncertainty are not, therefore, environmental “risks” rather than “effects”. The uncertainty factor might influence choices about ways to mitigate or to manage the effect if it eventuates, or to the degree that it eventuates, but it is the effect that demands assessment.

Environmental risk assessment can be useful in allocating priority and resources for investigating potential effects. In Victoria, relatively few projects are subject to assessment through a requirement for an EES, and those projects commonly raise concerns about potential effects on multiple environmental assets. But even then, it is likely that there are priority issues and issues less likely to be strongly material to the assessment. A proposed wind farm in a remote rural location may have potentially significant effects on biodiversity or landscape values, but is unlikely to be approved or refused on air quality grounds. By undertaking a preliminary environmental risk assessment, the proponent team can put some objective shape around a basis for identifying the issues most likely to be influential in the assessment outcome.

​Investigations of potential impacts arising from priority “environmental risks” will generate new information which was not available at the time of the initial risk assessment. This might lead to a conclusion that the priority for further investigation is lower than first thought, for example if field studies reveal that habitat for a particular threatened species of concern does not exist in the project area.  If new information leads to revised conclusions about the relative level of environmental risk, that could better inform decisions about the effort to be deployed into subsequent or continuing environmental investigations.
 
The level of impact arising from an identified risk might be reduced by applying or committing to targeted mitigation measures. The potential impact on a threatened aquatic species might be mitigated by preventative measures to stop wastewater from a project entering aquatic habitat or my treatment of wastewater to remove contaminants of concern before it enters the waterway.  In risk terms, the first measure would reduce the likelihood and the second would reduce the consequence. Contingency plans can provide for mitigation measures to be implemented if monitoring indicates that an impact which was identified as possible but uncertain in the assessment is found to be occurring.
 
To some extent, perhaps, the “impact” vs “risk” argument might be semantic. But as practitioners in a field into which many of our stakeholders might stray only occasionally, we can save a lot of tension and a lot of time by using language consistently to avoid cross-purpose arguments. Our discipline is impact assessment. Disciplined use of terms, especially those that can convey multiple meanings in different contexts, is a worthwhile investment in clarity and effective communication with proponents, stakeholders, regulators, and colleagues.

Download as a PDF
Footnotes

[1]
 By contrast, “impact” appears eight times and “effect” appears 203 times. The document comprises 31 pages.

​
[2] Dating as it does from the first decade of environmental impact assessment, Victoria’s legislation adopted the word “effects”, whereas almost all environmental impact assessment legislation provides for the assessment of environmental impacts, and a Victorian EES corresponds closely with the concept broadly referred to as an “EIS” in other jurisdictions.  
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  • Home
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    • Sign up for occasional updates from NZAIA
  • Impact Connector
    • Issue #16 SIA for rural resilience and wellbeing >
      • SIA for rural resilience and wellbeing: Intro
      • The drivers and agents of on-farm change in Aotearoa New Zealand
      • Social-ecological assessment for remote and island communities
      • The Impact of Substandard Rural Housing on Resilience and Wellbeing in Te Tai Tokerau
      • Success factors for planning regeneration in rural areas
    • Issue #15 Economic methods and Impact Assessment >
      • Economic methods in impact assessment: an introduction
      • The Nature of Economic Analysis for Resource Management
      • The State-of-the-Art and Prospects: Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services in Environmental Impact Assessment
      • Economic impact assessment and regional development: reflections on Queensland mining impacts
      • Fonterra’s policy on economic incentives for promoting sustainable farming practices
    • Issue #14 Impact assessment for infrastructure development >
      • Impact assessment for infrastructure development - an introduction
      • Place Matters: The importance of geographic assessment of areas of influence in understanding the social effects of large-scale transport investment in Wellington
      • Unplanned Consequences? New Zealand's experiment with urban (un)planning and infrastructure implications
      • Reflections on infrastructure, Town and Country planning and intimations of SIA in the late 1970s and early 1980s
      • SIA guidance for infrastructure and economic development projects
      • Scoping in impact assessments for infrastructure projects: Reflections on South African experiences
      • Impact Assessment for Pacific Island Infrastructure
    • Issue #13 Health impact assessment: practice issues >
      • Introduction to health impact assessment: practice issues
      • International Health Impact Assessment – a personal view
      • Use of Health Impact Assessment to develop climate change adaptation plans for health
      • An integrated approach to assessing health impacts
      • Assessing the health and social impacts of transport policies and projects
      • Whither HIA in New Zealand….or just wither?
    • Issue #12 Risk Assessment: Case Studies and Approaches >
      • Introduction
      • Risk Assessment and Impact Assessment : A perspective from Victoria, Australia
      • The New and Adaptive Paradigm Needed to Manage Rising Coastal Risks
      • Reflections on Using Risk Assessments in Understanding Climate Change Adaptation Needs in Te Taitokerau Northland
      • Values-Based Impact Assessment and Emergency Management
      • Certainty about Communicating Uncertainty: Assessment of Flood Loss and Damage
      • Improving Understanding of Rockfall Geohazard Risk in New Zealand
      • Normalised New Zealand Natural Disaster Insurance Losses: 1968-2019
      • Houston, We Have a Problem - Seamless Integration of Weather and Climate Forecast for Community Resilience
      • Innovating with Online Data to Understand Risk and Impact in a Data Poor Environment
    • Impact Connector #11 Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, and Impact Assessment: views from the Pacific >
      • Introduction
      • Climate change adaptation and mitigation, impact assessment, and decision-making: a Pacific perspective
      • Climate adaptation and impact assessment in the Pacific: overview of SPREP-sponsored presentations
      • Land and Sea: Integrated Assessment of the Temaiku Land and Urban Development Project in Kiribati
      • Strategic Environmental Assessment: Rising to the SDG Challenge
      • Coastal Engineering for Climate Change Resilience in Eastern Tongatapu, Tonga
      • Climate-induced Migration in the Pacific: The Role of New Zealand
    • Impact Connector #10 Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation >
      • Introduction
      • Is a “just transition” possible for Māori?
      • Adapting to Climate Change on Scale: Addressing the Challenge and Understanding the Impacts of Asia Mega-Cities
      • How responding to climate change might affect health, for better or for worse
      • Kanuka, Kereru and carbon capture - Assessing the effects of a programme taking a fresh look at the hill and high country land resource
      • Wairoa: Community perceptions of increased afforestation
      • Te Kākahu Kahukura Ecological Restoration project: A story within a story
    • Issue #9 Impacts of Covid-19 >
      • Introduction to Impact Connector Issue 9 – Impact assessment and Covid 19
      • Covid-19 fast-track consenting: climate change legacy key to success
      • Tourism – the long haul ahead
      • Making sense of the impact of Covid-19: planning, politics, and the public good
    • Issue #8 Social Impact Assessment >
      • Challenges for Social Impact Assessment in New Zealand: looking backwards and looking forwards
      • Insights from the eighties: early Social Impact Assessment reports on rural community dynamics
      • Impact Assessment and the Capitals Framework: A Systems-based Approach to Understanding and Evaluating Wellbeing
      • Building resilience in Rural Communities – a focus on mobile population groups
      • Assessing the Impacts of a New Cycle Trail: A Fieldnote
      • The challenges of a new biodiversity strategy for social impact assessment (SIA)
      • “Say goodbye to traffic”? The role of SIA in establishing whether ‘air taxis’ are the logical next step in the evolution of transportation
    • Issue #7 Ecological Impact Assessment >
      • The future of Ecological Impact Assessment in New Zealand
      • Ecological impact assessment and roading projects
      • EcIA and the Resource Management Act
      • Professional Practice and implementation of EcIA
      • EcIA in the Marine Environment
    • Issue #6 Landscape Assessment >
      • Introduction
      • Lives and landscapes: who cares, what about, and does it matter?
      • Regional Landscape Inconsistency
      • Landscape management in the new world order
      • Landscape assessment and the Environment Court
      • Natural character assessments and provisions in a coastal environment
      • The Assessment and Management of Amenity
      • The rise of the THIMBY
      • Landscape - Is there a common understanding of the Common?
    • Issue #5 Cultural Impact Assessment >
      • Introduction
      • Potential of Cultural Impact Assessment
      • The Mitigation Dilemma
      • CIA and decision-making
      • Insights and observations on CIA
      • Achieving sustainability through CIA
      • CIA - Enhancing or diminishing mauri?
      • Strategic Indigenous Impact Assessment?
    • Issue #4 Marine Environment >
      • Introduction
      • Iwi, Impact Assessment and Marine Environment
      • Sea-Bed Mining Application in Taranaki
      • The wreck of the MV Rena
      • High Court RMA Controls on Fishing
      • Initiatives in the Pacific Islands
      • SEA in an NZ context
    • Issue #3 Strategic Environmental Assessment
    • Issue #2
    • Issue #1
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