30 Jun 2022

Other Social Effects and Social Vulnerability Analysis: Existing Resources

Purpose: The following technical note (TN) provides a summary of existing resources available to the US Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) districts that address benefits in the Other Social Effects account for evaluating the effects of water resource projects. Consideration of social factors is key to a complete, robust, water-resources analysis, and these resources provide planners and project development teams with approaches and tools for their consideration. "social effects—the constituents of life that influence personal and group definitions of satisfaction, well-being, and happiness —OSE Primer, 3" This TN is limited in scope and does not cover ecosystem goods and services or environmental-quality metrics that can also be used to assess benefits outside of economic benefits from water-resource projects. The following resources and their associated metrics are presented in a manner that is focused on assisting districts during the project-planning phase, although the metrics can be used to assess benefits or impacts during other project phases as well (for example, construction, operations, and maintenance).