Abstract :
In American environmental impact assessment (EIA) under the Nationial Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the cultural parts of the affected environment—that is, those aspects of the environment that are related to or ascribed value because of their association with human culture—tend to be organized under two headings: cultural resources and socioeconomics. Discussions of socioeconomics emphasize such quantifiable variables as demography, income levels, and use of public services. Cultural resources tend to be equated explicitly or implicitly with historic properties as defined in the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). In a 1994 study conducted for the Council on Environmental Quality under the authorʹs direction, the vast majority of environmental impact statements (EISs) examined were found to bifurcate the cultural universe in this manner. The term cultural resources was invented by archeologists who in the early 1970s were beginning to become involved in work under NHPA but did not want to be classified as historic preservationists. To the average reader, however, the term seems comprehensive, embracing all those aspects of the environment that are related to culture and that comprise resources by virtue of being of some potential use to someone. A host of cultural aspects of the environment can and do “fall through the cracks” between cultural resources and socioeconomics. A communityʹs use of the natural environment for recreational, subsistence, religious, or contemplative purposes; its identification with a landform, a building, or a type of land use; traditional patterns of social interaction in a neighborhood; the cultural value ascribed to institutions like private land ownership or access to public lands—all these are cultural aspects of the environment that are not easily reflected in the quantifications of socioeconomics and that are not necessarily reflected in historic properties. Where an explicitly defined social impact assessment (SIA) is conducted, these aspects of the environment may be identified, and effects on them may be measured, but in many cases SIA is embedded in socioeconomic assessment, and social factors are overwhelmed by more easily measurable economics. A clear, agreed-upon definition of the cultural environment is needed, together with a consensus about how to approach its identification and the analysis of effects on it. The widely published proposed guidelines and principles of the Interorganizational Committee on Guidelines and Principles for Social Impact Assessment go far toward providing such a definition and direction, but some adjustments are needed to ensure that the gap between cultural resources and socioeconomics is effectively filled. A more comprehensive definition is proposed, together with a more integrated way of approaching analysis of impacts on the whole sociocultural environment.
