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

The social impact assessment of large-scale projects could help effectively control, prevent, or mitigate possible negative 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 evaluate the social impact over local communities. As a new method of social impact assessment, the variable analysis system has been proposed recently. The present study first provides a list of variable analysis systems for assessing the social impact of large-scale projects in China. It is worth noting that these systems are based on China's specific situations, and we further provide an in-depth analysis of available variables that have been commonly implemented by foreign countries for social 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 relationships among all variables in our selected variable system, and establishes the procedures for determining the causal and effect variables. Finally, with GangKouwan Reservior Project as the example, the validity of using variable analysis system for assessing the social impact of a reservoir project is tested with DEMATEL method specifically implemented. Overall, the present study could help provide solid evidence and reference for assessing the social impact of large-scale projects, and for addressing parsimony issues by simplifying variables.