Technology and public participation in environmental decisions

Since 1970, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has served as the main instrument for analyzing the environmental impacts of federal agency decisions and providing the public with opportunities to participate in the decision making process. For over 35 years, NEPA has defined the process by which agencies assess environmental impacts and disclose those assessments to the public. During this period however, NEPA has come under increasing scrutiny due to the considerable conflict surrounding environmental policies, eroding credibility of science-based policy information, and lack of meaningful public participation opportunities in practice. Experience has shown that collaborative decision making reduces conflict among participants, increases the credibility of science-based information underlying environmental decisions and improves the overall legitimacy of the participation process. The federal government has embraced web-based technology as a means of improving upon the traditional NEPA public participation process. Electronic participation has generated considerable interest among policymakers and scholars due to its potential to facilitate more efficient and more deliberative interaction between citizens and government.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Yao, Basilia Wang

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Herman A. Karl.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37474

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37474