1 / 33

Lesson 4 ODOT Best Practices

Lesson 4 ODOT Best Practices. Best Practices. Our Challenge: Best Practices for Action-Focused and Resource-Focused analyses are distinct Distinct best practices are not readily complimentary. Best Practices. Sources: Legal Decisions key standards of judicial review

whilemina-lewis
Download Presentation

Lesson 4 ODOT Best Practices

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Lesson 4 ODOTBest Practices

  2. Best Practices Our Challenge: • Best Practices for Action-Focused and Resource-Focused analyses are distinct • Distinct best practices are not readily complimentary

  3. Best Practices Sources: • Legal Decisions • key standards of judicial review • Communities of Practice • handbooks • reports • FHWA and IDT

  4. Best Practices More Reading! Fritiofson v. Alexander

  5. Best PracticesResource-Focused The Fritiofson v. Alexander Five Part Test: • What is the geographic area affected by the project? • What are the resources affected by the project? • What are the other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions that have impacted these resources? • What were those impacts? • What is the overall impact on these various resources from the accumulation of the actions? Fritiofson v. Alexander

  6. Best PracticesResource-Focused Fritiofson v. Alexander • Decision • Induced Growth • Affected Resources • Stressors and Limiting Factors • Sustainability of Resource in Space and Time • Mitigation, Monitoring, Adaptive Management

  7. Best Practices Action-Focused • The Sierra Club v. Marsh Three Part Test: • Confident that impacts are likely to occur? • Can impacts be sufficiently described and specified now to allow for useful evaluation? • If impacts are not evaluated now, will future evaluation of impacts be irrelevant? Sierra Club v. Marsh

  8. Best PracticesAction-Focused Sierra Club v. Marsh • Decisions • Reasonably Foreseeable Future Actions • Induced Growth • Affected Resources • Overlap of Decisions and Resources • Resource Effects in Space and Time

  9. Best PracticesAction-Focused • NCHRP Report No. 403 • NCHRP Report No. 466 • 2 categories of Indirect effects: • Encroachment-Alteration • Induced Growth and Related

  10. Best PracticesResource-Focused

  11. Best PracticesResource-Focused • “Considering Cumulative Effects” Table 1-5, page 10; • “EIA Components” blocks can and do match more than the “CEA Steps” listed in each row.

  12. Best PracticesResource-Focused

  13. Resource-Focused Community of Practice • CEQ’s 8 Principles: • “Considering Cumulative Effects” Table 1-2, page 8 • “Each affected resource, ecosystem, and human community must be analyzed in terms of its capacity to accommodate additional effects, based on its own time and space parameters” (item #8)

  14. Best Practices FHWA Checklists

  15. Best Practices FHWA Technical Memos

  16. Best Practices • State Guidance: • IDT • CalTrans • MD SHA • NC DOT • TX DOT • Wisconsin

  17. Best Practices Key Points: • Communities of Practice have published best practices • Less than ideal word choices, some author confusion still exist • Consistent theme … action-focus is part of input to resource-focused (risk to sustainability)

  18. Best PracticesScoping Key Points: • Scoping is the collaborative process of identifying and prioritizing information that will be useful to the decision-maker and publics • Focus in on possible impacts to resources for that may influence the decision • Establish REC model, spatial, temporal parameters • Investment in long range transport and resource management plans pay off here

  19. Best PracticesScoping For All Steps, Define and Reach Consensus on… • Study Approach or Methodology • Sources of Data • For Field Work, Allow for Murphy’s Law • Level of Effort • Work Product Results Must Be of Use to Decision-Makers

  20. Scoping Identifies Useful Information Exposure – Response Profile ↓ Stressors and Limiting Factors Resilience and Thresholds Adjustments and Feedbacks Dynamic Equilibrium ↓ Risk to Sustainability

  21. Scoping Identifies Useful Information Which REC's provide (practicable to obtain) useful information? Exposure – Response Profile ↓ Stressors and Limiting Factors Resilience and Thresholds Adjustments and Feedbacks Dynamic Equilibrium ↓ Risk to Sustainability

  22. Thinking About … How should we conduct EIA when the Resource is unstable or in a transition phase?

  23. Thinking About … Is there a reason they call it Baseline and not Basepoint? Can a snapshot in time provide useful information?

  24. Best Practices Analysis Key Points: • Determining the consequences is the two-part analysis of effects • Action-focused analyses is input to resource-focused analyses, target is sustainability

  25. Best PracticesAnalytic Principles • Sustainability – Dynamic Equilibrium • Additive, Countervailing, and Synergistic Responses • Look Beyond the Life of the Action

  26. Best PracticesForecast and Comparison • Base line (no-action) forecast … … future conditions in the absence of the project • With Project forecast … … conditions in future following implementation of the alternative • Often called “but for …” effects • Two Categories of action-focused exposure-response

  27. Induced Development Forecasting • Qualitative methods… …evaluate context or overall situation where little data exist or existing data is questionable or inconsistent • Quantitative methods … … model/search for causal factors • Utilize forecasts by regional planning and transportation agencies

  28. Best PracticesMethodologies • Literature review/comparative case analysis • Scenario writing • Trend extrapolation • Expert panel surveys or Delphi technique • Build-out or carrying capacity analysis • Regression/econometric techniques • Gravity models

  29. Best Practices Key Points: • Communities of Practice have published best practices • Less than ideal word choices, some author confusion still exist • Consistent theme … action-focus is input to resource-focused look at sustainability

  30. Best PracticesDocumentation Key Points: • Narrative sequence describes assessment and analysis, and discusses … • what we know • what we don’t know • the relative importance of what we don’t know • mitigation and monitoring opportunities

  31. Assessment Framework Identify and model the REC f(x) = y Assess Exposure (project – REC interaction) Identify the Decision and Action(s) Deconstruct the Action Consider Mitigation, Monitoring, and Adaptive Management Evaluate Risk to Sustainability (thresholds, resilience) Draw Conclusions and Disclose Implications Incorporate Feedbacks and adjustments Predict the REC’s Response

  32. Best PracticesDocumentation Evaluation • Issues • Communicating judgments, uncertainty, assumptions • Basic technique • Uncertainty and Assumptions • Sensitivity analysis

  33. Best Practices Which Fritiofson v Alexander criteria are best fit the scoping process? A. 1, 2, and 3 B. 1 and 2 C. 3 only D. All criteria

More Related