Starting up; early stages - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 125

Figure 4.18 An example of overlay
maps.
4.8.2 Quality of life assessment
The QOLA (or quality of life capital) approach was developed jointly by the Countryside
Agency et al. (2001) as a way of integrating the different agencies' approaches to
environmental management. QOLA focuses not on the things but on the benefits that
would be affected by a development proposal. It starts with the assumption that things
(e.g. woodlands, historical buildings) are important because of the benefits that they
provide to people (e.g. visual amenity, recreation, CO 2 fixing), and conversely that
management of those things should aim to optimize the benefits that they provide.
Quality of life assessment involves six steps (A-F). Having identified the purpose of
the assessment (A) and described the proposed development site (B), the
benefits/disbenefits that the site offers to sustainability, i.e. to present and future
generations, are identified (C). The technique then asks the following questions (D):
• How important is each of these benefits or disbenefits, to whom, and why?
• On current trends, will there be enough of each of them?
• What (if anything) could substitute for the benefits?
The answers to these questions lead to a series of management implications (E) which
allow a “shopping list” to be devised of things that any development/management on that
site should achieve, how they could be achieved, and their relative importance. Finally,
monitoring of these benefits is proposed (F). Thus the process concludes by clearly
stipulating the benefits that the development would have to provide before it was
considered acceptable and, as a corollary, indicates where development would not be
appropriate. It can be used to set a management framework (e.g. for Section 106
obligations, planning conditions, etc.) for any development on a given site (and also for
management of larger areas). The QOLA approach has been used to scope EIAs—