Today was a lecture heavy day which focused on introducing us to the topics of Decision Theory, Social Cost Benefit Analysis, and Multiple Account Evaluations. I had learned some of the material from ENGR 335, but it was good to review, as these topics are so important for transportation engineering. Among some of the new things I learned from this lecture would include was that for public consultations, it is important to set the expectation level for the public because you want to make the people attending these events feel like their opinion is significant, even if it is not. In addition, the topic of crime prevention through sustainable design was really interesting to learn about, I wish there was a course I could take at UBCO on this subject.
In the afternoon, we had a guest lecture come in and talk to us about impact assessments for sustainable development. This was a very interesting lecture in which we learned how important it is to perform impact assessments, not only environmental impact assessments, but assessments of everything that could be affected, both positively and negatively, from a development project. Funny quote of the day, “corruption in the government = ‘economic interest'”. Our lecturer taught us the steps in making an impact assessment (IA): Identification, Prediction, Assessment, Management, and last but not least, Follow Up. She also told us that it is important to first present the impacts, then present the benefits. I thought that the lecture was very informative and also a reminder to me, that even if a project will do economically well, it is always important to assess the other impacts and implications of a new development.
