(d) Appendix A provides an example documenta- 

 tion format for recording the results of this activity. 



3.4.7 Forecast without-plans conditions 

 activity. 



(a) This activity is performed to develop informa- 

 tion that measures or otherwise describes the 

 future conditions of EQ resource attributes in the 

 absence of any of the alternative plans under con- 

 sideration. Without-plans conditions should be esti- 

 mated in terms of the same quantity and quality in- 

 dicators used in the previous activity. 



(b) This activity is also an integral part of the 

 planning process Step 2 (inventory and forecast), 

 and should begin witfi a review of that information 

 base to determine whether or not information for 

 the identified EQ resource attributes is included. If 

 without-plans condition information for an EQ re- 

 source (in terms of its specified indicators) is not in- 

 cluded in Step 2 or, if such information is invalid or 

 out of date, a forecasting program should be devel- 

 oped and implemented to provide necessary infor- 

 mation. The subsection on information collection 

 programs (3.4.6(c)) is also applicable to forecasting 

 programs for without-plans conditions. 



(c) Without-plans conditions are the most prob- 

 able conditions based on consideration of the fol- 

 lowing: 



(1) Trend and existing conditions information, as 

 developed in the previous activity; 



(2) Other available related forecasts (for exam- 

 ple, local land use plans, population projections, 

 plans of commercial and industrial developers); 



(3) Established institutional objectives and con- 

 straints and customs and traditions related to the 

 resource (for example, State historic preservation 

 plans, management goals for wildlife refuges, 

 zoning ordinances, local agricultural practices); 



(4) Direct, indirect, and cumulative effects of all 

 reasonably foreseeable actions of people expected 

 to occur in the absence of any of the study's alter- 

 native plans (for example, effects of a habitat man- 

 agement program, a water supply project, or an on- 

 farm drainage action); 



(5) Direct, indirect, and cumulative effects of nat- 

 ural occurrences, such as natural succession or the 

 passage of time (for example, an existing aban- 

 doned farmland might be shown to succeed to a 

 grassland, a shrubland, and finally to a woodland 

 over the period of analysis; a public building may 

 be forecast to be of historic interest in the future); 

 and 



(6) Known effects of comparable past actions on 

 the same or similar resources. (A considerable 



body of information has been developed on the 

 known effects of existing water resources projects, 

 industrial developments, highways, etc.; many of 

 these include programs to monitor and record on- 

 going effects). 



(d) General forecasting approaches that may be 

 considered are — 



(1) Adoption of available forecasts developed by 

 other sources; 



(2) Use of scenarios to estimate hypothetical fu- 

 tures and the likely sequences of events that might 

 lead to those futures; 



(3) Use of expert group judgment approaches, 

 such as Delphi and nominal group, in which the 

 views of relevant professionals about future condi- 

 tions are systematically elicited and analyzed; and, 



(4) Use of extrapolation approaches, such as 

 trend analysis and simple modeling, which rely on 

 historic trend information to estimate the future. 



(5) Use of analogy and comparative analyses, in 

 which the effects of actions similar to those expect- 

 ed in the without-plans condition, on the specified 

 indicators, in similar environmental settings are 

 used to estimate future conditions. 



(e) Forecasting approaches should be compatible 

 with the measurement and description techniques 

 specified in the evaluation framework. 



(1) For example, if the Habitat Evaluation Proce- 

 dure (HEP; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1980) is 

 used in the previous activity to describe the existing 

 condition of a particular habitat, the forecasting 

 approach(es) used to estimate the without-plans 

 condition of the habitat must produce information 

 that can be used in the HEP analysis. 



(2) In most cases it is not possible to directly 

 forecast change in an indicator. It will usually be 

 necessary to forecast changes in factors that influ- 

 ence the indicator. Influencing factors may include 

 changes in the uses and conditions of related land, 

 water, and air. For example, given the indicator 

 "stream water temperature," it may be necessary 

 to forecast changes in streamside vegetation, up- 

 stream water uses, and other influencing factors in 

 order to derive the information needed to apply the 

 technique specified in the evaluation framework for 

 measuring changes in the indicator (stream water 

 temperature). 



(f) Forecasts should estimate future conditions 

 over the entire period of analysis; but if this is not 

 realistic or reasonable, planners should develop a 

 forecast of the longest possible duration and give 

 their reasons for not estimating to the end of the 

 period. Conversely, the period of analysis should 

 not constrain longer-term forecasts if they can be 



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