Cumulative effects information and environmental assessment decision-making in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories
department or school: Graduate Studies, College of (Okanagan)
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCO
creator: Arnold, Lauren
issued: 2018-04-11T19:01:37Z
issued: 2018
related degree: Master of Arts - MA
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: The purpose of this research was to investigate environmental assessment processes and how information about cumulative effects is used in decision-making about resource development activities in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories. In the context of expanding resource development, an understanding of cumulative impacts, which result from the combination of environmental stressors, is of increasing importance for freshwater resource management and decision-making. Cumulative effects assessment is supported by literature as a way of improving and progressing the environmental assessment process for resource development projects; it evaluates environmental impacts in combination with other past, present, and foreseeable impacts. Cumulative effects assessment is important to fully understand and to anticipate the consequences of resource development, but since it requires multiple types of information and multiple scales of analysis it is difficult to integrate into project-based environmental assessments. In the Mackenzie Valley, monitoring cumulative impacts is part of environmental assessment legislation as well as comprehensive land claim agreements; however, it is unclear how information about cumulative impacts is being used by environmental assessment decision-makers. This research included a document review of past environmental assessment reports and semi-structured interviews with representatives from organizations involved in environmental assessment. The objectives were to explore how cumulative effects information about freshwater is being used to guide decisions about resource development, identify the information organizations use and the information needed, and the key challenges for decision-making about cumulative effects. The results of this research highlight a weak connection between cumulative effects information and environmental assessment decision-making in the Mackenzie Valley and provide insight into how to better facilitate the use o…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/65290
note: CUMULATIVE EFFECTS INFORMATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT DECISION-MAKING IN THE MACKENZIE VALLEY, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES by Lauren Arnold B.A.&Sc., University of Saskatchewan, 2015 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FUFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS In The College of Graduate Studies (Interdisciplinary Studies) The University of British Columbia (Okanagan) April 2018 © Lauren Arnold, 2018 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis/dissertation entitled: Cumulative Effects Information and Environmental Assessment Decision-making in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories submitted by Lauren Arnold in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts Dr. Kevin Hanna, Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences, UBC Okanagan Supervisor Dr. Jon Corbett, Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences, UBC Okanagan Co-supervisor Dr. Bram Noble, University of Saskatchewan Supervisory Committee Member Dr. Adam Ford, Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences, UBC Okanagan University Examiner iii Abstract The purpose of this research was to investigate environmental assessment processes and how information about cumulative effects is used in decision-making about resource development activities in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories. In the context of expanding resource development, an understanding of cumulative impacts, which result from the combination of environmental stressors, is of increasing importance for freshwater resource management and decision-making. Cumulative effects assessment is supported by literature as a way of improving and progressing the environmental assessment process for resource development projects; it evaluates environmental impacts in combination with other past, present, and foreseeable impacts. Cumulative effects assessment is important to fully understand and to anticipate the consequences of…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2018-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0365545
language: eng
degree discipline: Interdisciplinary Studies
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/65290