The Application Of Interactive Community Forums In Social Impact Assessment

While the theory and practice of Social Impact Assessment in China is at initial phase, the assessment is constantly leaded by builders and government and mainly adopts traditional technology and economic method to represent the whole impacts of the project. Consequently, the traditional evaluation method emphasizes on the acquisition of results based on beneficial social facts to support the project and neglects the social influence of interaction among stakeholders during the assessment process and impacts from the standpoint of project community. Therefore, participatory assessment method at the community level has become a very urgent research topic.Based on the review of the current social impact assessment method and public participation, this paper established a problem-oriented assessment method emphasizing focusing on the community level. By using literature review, case observations, structured questionnaires and in-depth interviews method, the paper describes its mode and program.The main contents include:1) clarify and establish social impact assessment of research orientation, and propose middle ground approach namely problem-oriented methods; 2) study and establish community-based social impact assessment model, emphasizing interactive learning process among community members 3) elaborate interactive forum community assessment model to carry out the program. More exactly, combined with Gang Kouwan cases, discuss that community interactive forums should include four steps:determine the assessing scope and subject, get community’s baseline data, identify key issues and solve the problem through consultation;4) discuss the applicability of community interaction form, analyze the complementary relationship between the community interactive forum with the traditional evaluation mode. It point out the external and internal constraints, and propose the upgrade measures to improve the assessment by information disclosuring, professional teams forming and evaluation system optimizing.The paper established a problem-oriented assessment model emphasizing community participation and multi-stakeholder interactive, which is a more technically competent and in the line with spirit of democracy and ethical assessment procedures and also contribute to providing a new idea to carry out social impact assessment work.