Cumulative Effects Assessment for Nova Scotia Offshore Oil & Gas

The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (IAAC) is seeking the services of an external consultant to complete a cumulative effects assessment (CEA) to inform the analyses for the Regional Assessment of Oil and Gas Exploratory Drilling in the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Area. The Contractor will work directly with the IAAC RA Team to complete a CEA that evaluates how oil and gas offshore exploratory drilling may interact with other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable activities in the region, characterize cumulative effects on regional valued components, and propose mitigation, monitoring, and adaptive management measures at a regional scale. The CEA will focus on regional-scale patterns, trends, and interactions on environmental, health, social and economic components being assessed for the RA, rather than project-specific effects, and will support future regulatory decision-making, including potential consideration of an exclusion regulation under the Impact Assessment Act. The CEA will apply regional-scale spatial boundaries and multi-year temporal scales appropriate to the environmental, health, social and economic components being assessed for the RA. The consultant will work closely with the IAAC RA Team to understand which Valued Components to consider but the CEA will focus on Valued Component sensitivities, not full baseline descriptions.