Resource significance: A new prospective for environmental project planning

Resource significance is one of the metrics used in the decision making process of selecting environmental projects for implementation. The theory being that the more significant resources, as defined in Institutional, Technical, and Public parameters, will be carried into the implementation phase of project planning. This report provides a brief discussion of the sources for determining resource significance. It also provides summary statistics of 95 programs developed for purposes of ranking projects based on certain levels of significance. Among these are Federal, Regional, State, Nonprofit and Historical programs. The report presents summaries of selected existing programs that can assist in the identification and description of the significance of environmental resources. Included are discussions of models for prioritizing National and Regional environmental resource priorities as well as models which use established sets of scientific or technical criteria, institutional criteria, public support or opinion and models which promote interagency cooperation to establish environmental resource priorities.