3.2.4. Impact assessment
In order to improve transparency in the policy-making process, as well as in communal
decision-making, it is necessary to quantify the impacts on various social, economic and
environmental goals under different scenarios. This is done through development of
sustainability indicators and indices that have been used to assess and compare scenarios.
The evaluation of alternative scenarios for their impacts on sustainability was done with
respect to six issues that were identified as chief concerns for agricultural sustainability in
the region. These are availability of land base, land productivity potential, economic
outputs, economic costs, water quality and availability of wildlife habitat. Indicators
developed for these social, economic and environmental concerns are presented in Fig. 3.
These indicators are described below.