Prediction and Uncertainty in Social Impact Evaluation: A Classification Framework

Predicting social impacts supports strategic decisions for Programs, Plans, Processes, and Projects (PPPPs) aligned with Sustainable Development Goals. The focus on social impact in urban and territorial policies necessitates ethical responsibility, addressing spatial justice, territorial cohesion, participatory processes, and social groups involvement. Urban and territorial contexts, conceived as open systems, can add complexity to the unambiguous identification of target areas, beneficiaries, or defined time intervals, increasing uncertainty, especially in social impact predictions. The rise in social impact assessment models, often adapted from environmental assessments, conflicts with the uncertain nature of social impacts in PPPPs. This leads to a need for open and incremental research approaches. This article explores the links between social impacts and uncertainty in the impact evaluation process in PPPPs contexts. The methodological approach defines a classification framework identifying four main uncertainty factors: Process uncertainty, encompassing Impact Categories, Impact Attributes, Causal Pattern; Context uncertainty, including Main Attributes of Complex PPPPs to explore the heterogeneity of impacts and the complexity of cause-and-effect networks in social impact evaluations of PPPPs.