Considering Cumulative Effects Under the National Environmental Policy Act Page: 45
[ix], 64, 48, 6 p. : ill., mapsView a full description of this text.
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appropriate spatial scale,
means of assessing causality,
means of measuring mitigation efficacy,
and
provisions for adaptive management.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES
SUMMARY
Although cumulative effects analysis is
similar in many ways to the analysis of project-
specific effects, there are key differences. To
determine the environmental, social, and eco-
nomic consequences of cumulative effects, the
analyst should
* Select the resources, ecosystems, and
human communities considered in the
project-specific analysis to be those that
could be affected cumulatively.
* Identify the important cause-and-effect
relationships between human activities
and resources of concern using a net-
work or systems diagram that focuses
on the important cumulative effects
pathways.
Adjust the geographic and time boun-
daries of the analysis based on cumu-
lative cause-and-effect relationships.
Incorporate additional past, present,
and reasonably foreseeable actions into
the analysis as indicated by the cumu-
lative cause-and-effect relationships.Determine the magnitude and signif-
icance of cumulative effects based on
context and intensity and present tables
comparing the effects of the proposed
action and alternatives to facilitate deci-
sionmaking.
Modify or add alternatives to avoid,
minimize, or mitigate cumulative effects
based on the cause-and-effect pathways
that contribute most to the cumulative
effect on a resource.
Determine cumulative effects of the
selected alternative with mitigation and
enhancement measures.
Explicitly address uncertainty in com-
municating predictions to decisionmak-
ers and the public, and reduce uncer-
tainty as much as possible through mon-
itoring and adaptive management.
Determining the environmental consequen-
ces entails describing the cause-and-effect
relationships producing cumulative effects and
summarizing the total effect of each alternative.
These activities require developing a cumula-
tive effects analysis methodology (Chapter 5)
from available methods, techniques, and tools of
analysis (Appendix A).47
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Council on Environmental Quality (U.S.). Considering Cumulative Effects Under the National Environmental Policy Act, text, January 1997; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc31126/m1/54/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .