Sustainability Language

Governance, Ethics & Risk

Cumulative impact

The combined, incremental effects of multiple actions and stressors on people and ecosystems — beyond what any single project's assessment captures.

Established · Version 0.1

Expert review openNo editor-accepted expert review yet

Definition

Cumulative impact (or cumulative effects) refers to the totality of impacts arising from the interaction of multiple past, present and reasonably foreseeable actions and stressors. The US Council on Environmental Quality defined cumulative effects in 1979 regulations; the US EPA's 2022 framing emphasises the combined burden of chemical and non-chemical stressors on communities, including social and economic stressors.

References

Overview

What it means

A wetland lost here and a road built there may each look acceptable, while together they push an ecosystem or community past a threshold.

How it is used

Cumulative impact assessment extends project-level ESIA to valued environmental and social components (VECs) at regional scale; it is increasingly central to environmental-justice policy and strategic environmental assessment.

Why it matters

Project-by-project approval systematically underestimates harm; cumulative framing is the corrective that regulators and courts increasingly demand.

Review

Public comments appear only after editor acceptance. Draft comments stay in the review queue.

0
How people contribute

Reviewers choose the definition or an overview paragraph, leave a comment or replacement, and attach evidence or a source link.

How comments are used

Editors compare reviewer cards side by side. AI may help find agreement, conflicts, unsupported claims and possible source issues.

What gets published

Only an editor-accepted synthesis changes the public page. Reviewer identities are shown only with consent and verification.

No verified experts yet

Submitted reviews stay private until accepted.

Endorse this definitionSuggest a revisionSubmit a wider review

Loading verified endorsements… Endorsements are not votes and never determine publication.

Endorse this definition

Endorse the exact version shown here. This is not a vote, and publication remains an editorial decision.

v0.1

Sign-in supplies your email for verification and necessary follow-up; it is not displayed publicly. We do not ask you to enter it again.

Sign in with a passwordless email link before submitting.

Review board

Comment on a specific line. Each reviewer stays separate until an editor accepts a merged draft.

1Separate reviewer cards

Each person comments on the definition or overview in their own draft card, with role, evidence and suggested wording kept together.

2AI comparison

AI can compare comments against the current text, flag conflicting claims, surface missing evidence and identify where reviewers agree.

3Editor synthesis

An editor merges compatible suggestions into a draft change, checks sources, records disagreements and decides what can be published.

Text to reviewChoose the exact definition or overview paragraph.
Reviewer commentDraft only. Not public until editor accepted.
Definition
Reviewer identityYour signed-in account identifies the submission. We use its email only for verification and necessary follow-up, and never display it publicly.
Before you submit

This proposal follows the editorial and AI-assistance rules. The live definition will not change until an editor accepts it.

  • Add the proposed wording or note.
  • Explain why the change is needed.
  • Ready
  • Ready

Sign in with a passwordless email link before submitting.

You can still save a draft, but completing these items makes editorial review faster. Multiple reviewers can suggest changes on the same text. Editors compare, merge, accept or decline them before any public change.