Using news coverage and community-based impact assessments to understand and track social effects using the perspectives of affected people and decisionmakers.

This paper applies an innovative approach to monitoring social effects occurring before and during construction of two hydroelectric dams in Canada. The two studied dams, Site C and Keeyask, are under construction in Canada and underwent community-based impact assessment (CBIA). News coverage and the CBIA documents were analyzed to understand and compare how those two groups perceive social effects induced by the two projects.