193Conducting the Environmental Impact Analysis and Assessment
• Impacts to vastly different environmental resources can be compared
on a common basis. In the above example, it is impossible to deter-
mine which is more detrimental, 20 trips or 0.5 mg/l reduction given
just the measurement. But if both are assigned a level of signicance
on a common scale they can be directly compared.
• The process allows another avenue for stakeholder participation
by encouraging input in dening threshold levels of impact. It is
an active role for the stakeholders and by supplying meaningful
input to impact determination they receive a positive return on their
investment of time and energy into the process. It also enhances sup-
port for ...