The tools of social assessment are many and varied. Social assessments provide clients with information about people: what makes them tick, how they fit together, what drives their behaviours, where and when their decision points are, how to communicate effectively with different groups. We characterize communities, stakeholders, organizations, or combinations of these. We use census data, focus groups, interviews, surveys, social network analysis, and other tools to determine characteristics and behaviours of social groups for our clients.

We have developed community characterizations for four National Estuarine Research Reserves; stakeholder inventory and analysis for the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve; social network analysis of natural resource management regimes in Baltimore, MD and the Annapolis Valley, NS; and integrated biophysical and spatial analyses for urban and rural watershed associations in NB.