Systems thinking in impact assessment: Where we are and where we're going

Abstract

Those mandating, commissioning and practising Impact Assessment (IA) have been aware for some time that systems thinking tools need to be better integrated into assessment- and decision-making. The research community has been especially vocal in the call for change. Although true to suggest that IA is mostly reductionist in its conception of social-ecological systems, systems thinking approaches are evident in historical and contemporary IA theory and practice. Some of these approaches explicitly bring the theoretical foundations of systems thinking into IA practice, e.g. systems mapping approaches. While others have tacitly applied systems thinking approaches over many years, consciously or unconsciously, e.g. integrated social-ecological narratives. In this paper, we briefly showcase the main systems thinking approaches used in IA. This umbrella typology of approaches includes narratives, matrices, digraphs, cause-and-effect analysis, flow diagrams and decision trees. We highlight the extent to which systems thinking has been integrated into IA practice, and discuss current limitations and challenges. To make systems thinking more mainstream in IA we propose four key focus areas moving forward: focussing on renewed research, generating practicable systems thinking frameworks, piloting and monitoring novel approaches, and capacitating practitioners and decision-makers with systems thinking skills.