Many jurisdictions are looking to next-generation impact assessment (IA) that includes sustainability considerations that extend beyond biophysical. Subjectivity is inherent in many of these additional impact considerations, and they are often not easily nor effectively quantified. Delivering effective IA within this broadening scope requires new, innovative, and rigorous applications of qualitative methods that enable meaningful inclusion of diverse knowledges, values, and information. While many qualitative methods are available for IA, there remains a significant opportunity to strengthen their contribution toward more effective IA practice. As such, we establish in this paper needs that must be addressed if qualitative methods are to meaningfully contribute to IA and pathways for acting on these needs. Relating findings from a survey, semi-structured interviews, and a world caf & eacute;, the paper specifically identifies six key needs for enhancing the effective use of qualitative methods in IA, and five pathways for addressing these needs that involve all IA actors. We conclude that there are deeply entrenched assumptions about qualitative methods and that shifting these views will be challenging and take time. Together, the identified needs and pathways provide a framework for action to improve the effectiveness of IA and should be considered in IA training and practice.

Since its inception, impact assessment (IA) has been perceived by many to be a largely technical, quantitative exercise. However, as jurisdictions shift towards a more sustainability-oriented IA that accounts for a wider range of social, cultural, economic, health and well-being, and equity implications of proposed projects and strategic initiatives, values and subjectivity come more to the fore. Making predictions now needs innovative, and rigorous applications of qualitative methods that enable meaningful inclusion of diverse knowledges, values, and information sources, whilst at the same time giving confidence to decision makers and other stakeholders about the evidence base. Adopting such qualitative methods in practice is hindered by a lack of clarity of the role of qualitative methods in the delivery of sustainability-oriented IA. Guided by findings from a thematic analysis of primary data gathered through an international survey supplemented by semi-structured interviews and a workshop, the novel contribution of this paper is to clarify how and why qualitative methods can best contribute to the effective delivery of next generation IA.

Qualitative methods for impact assessment (IA) represent a broad spectrum of approaches that are important for realising effective IA practice. The purpose of this paper is to identify and promote qualitative methods that are available for use in contemporary and future (next-generation) IA processes. From an extensive literature review, an international survey (145 responses), expert interviews (48 interviewees), and a workshop attended by 27 IA practitioners, 17 qualitative method categories were identified. These were further subdivided into three classes: conventional qualitative methods, highly participatory methods, and mixed methods. Each method is described, and an indication given of how each can be used in IA practice, including the specific stage of the IA process to which they might be applied. Whilst this paper seeks to stimulate practitioners to apply qualitative methods to enrich IA practices, the research also identifies a lack of expertise with social science methods as a significant barrier to the effective use of qualitative methods in IA practice.

The particularly severe wildfire season of 2015 resulted in the largest evacuation ever experienced in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. La Ronge – a region of northern Saskatchewan comprising one First Nation and two municipal jurisdictions – was among the areas significantly affected by the wildfires. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with local government representatives and community residents, this chapter examines how institutions for emergency and wildfire management shaped pathways for adaptation, as well as how gender and other intersecting social structures and power influenced these pathways. The analysis revealed a strong emphasis on incremental approaches to wildfire adaptation, with a primary focus on technical, physical, and economic impacts and the agencies that responded to these impacts. While these measures are important, alone they fail to address many of the more intangible impacts experienced by community residents, many of which were experienced differently across intersections of gender, race, socioeconomic status, and age. Ultimately, there is a need for deeper transformative change towards inclusive adaptation as large, frequent, and intense fires continue to become the 'new normal' for communities across boreal regions of Canada.

Impacts and losses as a result of climate hazards are experienced unevenly across communities and can prove devastating to the health and well-being of local residents. Contextual approaches for understanding vulnerability and adaptation have focused on why diverse individuals and groups experience the effects of climate change differently, while values-based approaches place emphasis on identifying the subjective values individuals and communities wish to preserve. Both approaches contribute to locally responsive adaptation, but are rarely applied simultaneously. In this paper, we propose intersectionality as a framework that links and builds upon contextual and values-based approaches and demonstrate its efficacy through an empirical example of a major wildfire event in northern Saskatchewan, Canada. An intersectional framework identified how impacts and losses to locally significant values differed across intersections of location, race, ethnicity, gender and age and how these differences were influenced by broader social structures and power relationships, such as histories of colonization and gendered norms and expectations. Practical implications for the development of inclusive and equitable adaptation policy and planning were also identified, including the need to: (a) expand the range of impacts considered and recognize how outcomes differ across social groups; (b) enhance diverse community members' participation in planning efforts, and (c) acknowledge and build upon what local residents are already doing in response to hazards in their communities. Key policy insights Failure to consider how impacts and invisible losses are experienced across intersections of identity can lead to adaptation policy and practice that reinforce existing social inequalities. An intersectional analysis revealed a suite of context-specific, locally-relevant values and systems of power that shaped how communities experience, respond to, and plan for climate hazards. The application of an intersectional framework can provide practical direction for adaptation policy that: (1) responds to differing experiences and values across social groups; (2) recognizes agency and builds on what people are already doing; and, (3) addresses root causes of vulnerability.

The unprecedented 2015 wildfire season in northern Saskatchewan, Canada resulted in the largest evacuation in the province's history. The depiction of such environmental hazards in the news media is one mechanism that can, even inadvertently, reinforce historical and contemporary social inequalities through its discursive construction of the event and actors involved. We modified and applied a critical frame analysis (CFA) to explicitly reveal how intersecting social identity attributes and associated power relations emerged in media narratives of the Saskatchewan wildfire event, as well as how dominant narratives were challenged. Findings derived from two local and two national news sources revealed that mainstream media largely reflected and reinforced a normative characterization of wildfire response and planning that is highly gendered and exclusionary. Specifically, this characterization constructed intersecting dualisms, giving agency to men and historically male-dominated organizations and casting women, as well as northern and Indigenous communities, as passive residents in need of protection. Our application of the framework also revealed how dominant narratives were challenged through alternative discourses that recognized the agency of community members. A key contribution of the CFA framework, when combined with an intersectional lens, is its ability to draw attention to the ways in which identity attributes (e.g., gender, race) and associated power relations (e.g., patriarchy, racism, colonialism) work together, and to thereby generate insights that can help redefine policy problems and ultimately, more effectively address the social dimensions of environmental hazards.

This paper examines the role of participation and learning in Kenyan strategic environmental assessments (SEAs) of urban plans that include a solid waste management (SWM) component. Two SEA cases were studied using 40 semi-structured interviews and two focus groups. Data are analysed qualitatively employing NVivo software. Participation is assessed using ideal conditions of learning derived from Transformative Learning Theory, and operationalised for this study. Strengths of SEA participation are freedom from coercion and equal opportunity to participate. Notable weaknesses include inaccessibility of SEA documents, inadequate participant funding, and lack of feedback and transparency about the SEA findings. Participants exhibited numerous learning outcomes and associated social actions on urban SWM including waste sorting, recycling and composting (instrumental learning), sharing values and community collaborations on cleanup and recycling (communicative learning), and altering conventional viewpoints from ‘waste for disposal’ to ‘waste as a resource’ (transformative learning), including for livelihood opportunities.

Livelihood, employment, subsistence, and recreational practices of rural and Indigenous communities in the global North are increasingly impacted by climate hazards such as wildfire, floods, and drought. However, communities are often viewed as homogenous entities, with little recognition to how diverse individuals within those communities experience and respond to such hazards. Intersectionality, a concept derived from feminist theory, offers a promising lens for delineating how power relationships and interacting social characteristics such as gender, race, ethnicity, class, location, and age influence context-specific experiences of climate hazards. In this paper, we relate our findings from a rapid literature review identifying how intersectionality is currently being approached in climate hazards research of the global North. With these findings, along with insights from theoretical intersectionality scholarship, we then develop an analytical framework composed of five attributes to guide empirical research on the social dimensions of climate hazards in rural communities of the global North. The framework offers a means for comparative intersectional research, contributing to an enhanced understanding of socially equitable and culturally appropriate adaptive responses, outcomes, and decision-making.

Canadian Geographies / Les géographies canadiennesVolume 62, Issue 3 p. e20-e21 Book Reviews / Comptes rendus de livres Climate Change and Gender in Rich Countries: Work, Public Policy, and Action edited by Marjorie Griffin Cohen, Routledge, New York, 2017, 322 pp., paper $42.95 (ISBN 978-1138222403) Heidi Walker, Heidi Walker University of SaskatchewanSearch for more papers by this author Heidi Walker, Heidi Walker University of SaskatchewanSearch for more papers by this author First published: 04 July 2018 https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12478Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume62, Issue3Fall / automne 2018Pages e20-e21 RelatedInformation

Kenya is among the first countries in sub-Saharan Africa to formally require the assessment of public policies, plans and programs. National strategic environmental assessment (SEA) guidelines were finalized in 2012 to adapt and enhance SEA practice in the Kenyan context. The purpose of this research was to examine recent Kenyan SEA, with a particular emphasis on public participation, by developing and applying an analysis framework that both incorporates commonly accepted SEA principles and approaches and is cognizant of the national context in shaping SEA practice. Results reveal that a number of SEA practices are consistent with the framework in the nine cases considered, such as containing standard SEA components and developing monitoring plans. A requirement that each SEA must include educating the public about SEA is an innovative local adaptation. Results also show a number of practices that are still emerging, such as initiating SEA early and disseminating results to the participants. We conclude that SEA is still developing in Kenya, but processes for conducting it are slowly adapting to the Kenyan context.

The UN indicates that water for irrigation and food production constitutes one of the greatest pressures on freshwater resources, especially within the Asian region. Recent developments in water management relate to participatory governance, where civil society is included in the political, social, economic, and administrative systems that develop and manage water resources. In Thailand, the Royal Irrigation Department has adopted Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM), which involves multiple sectors of water users in decision-making at all levels of irrigation system management. This research identified learning outcomes associated with participation in Joint Management Committees for Irrigation (JMC), the top PIM governance tier, particularly related to governance and sustainable water management. Our research was qualitative following a case study approach, utilising 51 semi-structured interviews at two sites, participant observation, and document reviews. Results showed that participating in PIM activities facilitated both instrumental (e.g. technical knowledge, skills and information, and task-based learning) and communicative (e.g. insights into the interests of others, communication strategies, and comparative reflection) learning among JMC participants. Findings also showed that action outcomes based on learning were mainly related to adopting new governance systems and conserving water for future irrigation use.

Meaningful public engagement is a challenging, but promising, feature of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) due to its potential for integrating sustainability principles into policies, plans and programs in developing countries such as Kenya. This research examined two selected SEA case studies to identify the extent of participation, learning outcomes attributable to participation, and if any learning outcomes led to social action for sustainability at the community level. Strengths across the two cases were the inclusion of marginalized populations and consideration of socio-economic concerns. Consistent weaknesses included inadequate notice, document inaccessibility, lack of feedback and communication, and late analysis of alternatives. Despite some learning conditions being unfulfilled, examples of instrumental, communicative, and transformative learning were identified through a focus group and semi-structured interviews with community participants and public officials. Some of these learning outcomes led to individual and social actions that contribute to sustainability.