This important Handbook is an essential guide to the state-of-the-art concepts, debates and innovative practices in the field of cumulative impact assessment. It helps to strengthen the foundations of this challenging field, identify key issues demanding solutions and summarize recent trends in forward progress, particularly through the use of illustrative case examples.

This study reviews current practices for identifying and assessing cumulative effects in order to formulate recommendations that the Canadian Environmental Assessment Research Council (CEARC) may use in drafting a research prospectus. A preliminary analytical framework for assessing CEA is presented, and 3 case studies documenting Canadian experience with assessing and managing cumulative effects are examined.

The book is comprised of practical environmental and socioeconomic information which can be used in planning and implementing CEAM studies. Such information has been compiled from CEAM practices in the USA, Canada, Australia, European, and many other countries. Considerable information on step-wise CEAM processes, along with connector methods and resource-related methods and tools for predicting, mitigating, and managing cumulative effects on key Valued Ecosystem Components (VECs), is included.