Environmental Studies Program Direction: Understanding Social and Economic Impacts

Objective: To survey, better understand, and predict the impacts of offshore activities on coastal communities and economies.

Often, assessment of the short- and long-term effects of OCS activities on the marine, human, and coastal environments, points to the impacts on social and economic structures as the first seen and the strongest felt. Opposition to offshore activities is often a result of either perceived or projected onshore impacts, whether aesthetic, structural, or economic. To better provide decisionmakers with reliable estimates and projections and possible mitigation measures, MMS has increased its socioeconomic studies nearly threefold in the past 8 years.

Paraphrased from MMS discussions with Scientific Committee at November 1997 meeting:
The social and economic impacts of energy development are often the first felt and the most strongly experienced of any impacts. The MMS is discovering also that unlike the biological and physical environments, which usually heal relatively quickly, social and economic regimes may require a longer timeframe to recover.

The downturn of the oil and gas industry in the mid-1980's highlighted the importance of regional, State, and local reliance on industry-related jobs, and revenues in both the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. Accordingly, socioeconomic research was begun to assess the effect of that downturn in both Regions.

In the Pacific Region, the majority of recent social science efforts centered around developing liaisons with local counties to collaboratively plan for onshore effects of offshore activities.

In Alaska, the one focus of social and economic research in recent years has been to investigate the sociocultural and economic effects resulting from the early 1990's downturn of the oil and gas industry activities. Although activity within the State is on the rise, it is important to plan for any future changes.

A current challenging project for the ESP is collecting traditional knowledge of Alaskan Natives. The Alaskan Natives of the North Slope and Cook Inlet are concerned with the potential impacts of OCS activities on subsistence species and fishing grounds. They want their knowledge to be included in the efforts to evaluate OCS impacts. In recent years, there has been a growing national interest in incorporating the knowledge of indigenous people into the decisionmaking process, for both governmental and the private sectors.

Traditional knowledge is quite different, in form, content, and use, from the scientific and technical information MMS has historically used. Traditional knowledge exists primarily in an oral format, passed down through families and communities. While much has been taped, both in video and audio, a great deal of this knowledge has not been either translated or transcribed onto paper. Some study efforts will be necessary to balance Native knowledge with scientific knowledge, to assure the flow of traditional knowledge to Environmental Impact Statement analysts, and to create an effective means of processing, holding, and using the information. Traditional knowledge research in future years may be proposed for other active Alaskan OCS areas.

Meeting the Need: The ESP currently has more than 32 ongoing social and economic projects.

For more information, contact Rodney Cluck.