Using Social Impact Assessment to Strengthen Community Resilience in Sustainable Rural Development in Mountain Areas

Building community resilience is an important topic in the current debate about achieving positive community development outcomes from sustainable place-based policies, especially in mountain regions and less-favored areas. At the practical, grassroots level, however, it remains unclear how community resilience can be effectively included and assessed in local development efforts. We argue that social impact assessment (SIA) can and should play a key role in assessing regional development strategies and proposals and in building community resilience. We present the SIA Framework for Action as a tool to enhance policies, plans, programs, and projects and to assist in attaining appropriate social development outcomes, including community resilience. We demonstrate the value of the framework by discussing its application in a development project in rural Italy-the restoration of the Tratturo Magno, an ancient path used by shepherds and flocks for transhumance over centuries. The project, Vie e Civilta della Transumanza, patrimonio dell'Umanita (Routes and Civilization of Transhumance World Heritage), inter alia, sought to promote rural tourism by restoring parts of the Tratturo Magno in the area damaged by the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake.