Sustainability of Local Communities in a New Oil and Gas Region: The Case of Eastern Siberia

Abstract

The need of the global economy for natural resources encourages the movement of extractive industries to new areas, significantly affecting local communities. The study of community sustainability under the influence of extractive industries is multidimensional, as it depends on the geographical characteristics of the area, the historical background, the sociocultural and institutional environments, current government policies, and so on. Therefore, it is important for these local-level studies to comprehensively consider heterogeneous qualitative and quantitative data, paying special attention to the views of local people. This paper examines the impact of industrial natural resource development on community sustainability through a comprehensive approach that considers qualitative and quantitative socioeconomic data, including residents’ perceptions of current and future settlement development. The study is based on the example of communities located in areas of new oil and gas development in the north of the Irkutsk region (Eastern Siberia, Russia). Social science methods (semistructured interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and participant observations), comparative geographical, and statistical methods are used. A comprehensive approach allows us to identify various issues associated with maintaining the sustainability of local communities manifested under the influence of oil and gas extraction in different types of settlements. The findings contribute to the study of community sustainability during the industrial development of natural resources and have practical implications for decision-makers in terms of the socioeconomic management of the studied area and other territories with similar conditions.