The Establishment and Analysis of the Variable System for Assessing theSocial Impact of Large-Scale Projects in China

摘要

The social impact assessment of large-scale projects could help effectively control, prevent, or mitigate possiblenegative impacts caused by such projects, and thus has been gradually developed nationally and internationally. However,due to some inherent problems, conventional index assessment system could not accurately measure and evaluatethe social impact over local communities. As a new method of social impact assessment, the variable analysis system hasbeen proposed recently. The present study first provides a list of variable analysis systems for assessing the social impactof large-scale projects in China. It is worth noting that these systems are based on China's specific situations, and we furtherprovide an in-depth analysis of available variables that have been commonly implemented by foreign countries forsocial impact assessment, including 32 assessment variables developed and used by Interorganizational Committee. Furthermore,with the application of DEMATEL-based method, the present study analyzes the interdependent relationshipsamong all variables in our selected variable system, and establishes the procedures for determining the causal and effectvariables. Finally, with GangKouwan Reservior Project as the example, the validity of using variable analysis system forassessing the social impact of a reservoir project is tested with DEMATEL method specifically implemented. Overall, thepresent study could help provide solid evidence and reference for assessing the social impact of large-scale projects, andfor addressing parsimony issues by simplifying variables.