What cumulative impacts needs is a simple solution to a complex problem, or at least a simplified approach if solution is a too ambitious goal. A solution implies that they would cease to exist, yet cumulative impacts are a part of everyone’s everyday lives. The question remains whether a feasible, standardized approach can be designed to coordinate across sectors, scales, and stakeholders, or whether the conundrum of cumulative impacts shall remain uncoordinated through time. The work presented here attempts to operationalize cumulative impacts. It is based on the premise that only through human decision-making can change occur through programs, policies, and decisions acting as points of intervention and levers for change, supported by science and targeted to relevant stakeholders. This work presents a simple and familiar conceptual model and four real-world applications; not designed to address cumulative impacts, but rather to address impacts cumulatively. The process to address impacts cumulatively is simple; not easy, but straightforward, and can be done by any individual, team, or organization – public, private, or government; local, regional, or national – motivated to improve public health and environmental quality.

Tim Barzyk is a physical scientist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development. Over the past two decades, he has worked with dozens of community residents and leaders, state environmental and public health agencies, and national regulatory program offices to apply scientific research to policies and decision-making while seeking measurable improvements in environmental quality and public health. After many trials and more than a few errors of applying measurements, models, and data analysis to the issue of cumulative impacts, he contends that it’s the willingness of people to work together that ultimately effects change on the ground, and not so much the measurements we take. His current work focuses on convening appropriate stakeholders and collecting relevant measurements to strategically target programs, policies, and decisions that demonstrably improve public health and environmental quality through coordinated decision-making.