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EIA FUTURE DIRECTION

Week 6
LESSONS FROM THE PAST

Worst Performance

• The EIA process is consistently applied to development proposals


with many sectors and classes of activity omitted.
• The EIA process operates as a stand alone process, poorly related to
the project cycle and approval process and consequently is of
marginal influence.
• The EIA process has a non-extent or weak follow-up process, lacking
surveillance and enforcement of terms and conditions, effect
monitoring, etc.
• The EIA process does not consider cumulative effects or social,
health and risk factors.
• The EIA process makes little or no reference to the public, or
consultation is perfunctory, substandard and takes no account of the
specific requirements of affected groups.
LESSONS FROM THE PAST

• The results in EIA reports are voluminous, poorly organised and


descriptive technical documents.
• The EIA process is inefficient, time consuming and costly in relation
to the benefits delivered.
• The EIA process understates and insufficiently mitigates
environmental impacts and losses credibility.
• There is an evident gap between the principles and practice of EIA,
between what is written and what is done.
• EIA is characterised by problems of prediction. It is typically
employed reactively, after project design or route or site selection has
been completed. Project option or alternative is barely available.
LESSONS FROM THE PAST

Worst Performance

• The EIA process is consistently applied to development proposals


with many sectors and classes of activity omitted.
• The EIA process operates as a stand alone process, poorly related to
the project cycle and approval process and consequently is of
marginal influence.
• The EIA process has a non-extent or weak follow-up process, lacking
surveillance and enforcement of terms and conditions, effect
monitoring, etc.
• The EIA process does not consider cumulative effects or social,
health and risk factors.
• The EIA process makes little or no reference to the public, or
consultation is perfunctory, substandard and takes no account of the
specific requirements of affected groups.
LESSONS FROM THE PAST

Worst Performance

• The EIA process is consistently applied to development proposals


with many sectors and classes of activity omitted.
• The EIA process operates as a stand alone process, poorly related to
the project cycle and approval process and consequently is of
marginal influence.
• The EIA process has a non-extent or weak follow-up process, lacking
surveillance and enforcement of terms and conditions, effect
monitoring, etc.
• The EIA process does not consider cumulative effects or social,
health and risk factors.
• The EIA process makes little or no reference to the public, or
consultation is perfunctory, substandard and takes no account of the
specific requirements of affected groups.
LESSONS FROM THE PAST

Best Performance

• Facilitates informed decision making by providing clear, well-structured,


dispassionate analysis of the effects and consequences of proposed actions.
• Assists the selection of alternatives, including the selection of the best
practicable or most environmentally friendly option.
• Influences both project selection and policy design by screening out
environmentally unsound proposal as well as modifying feasible action.
• Encompasses all relevant issues and factors, including cumulative effects, social
impacts, and health risks.
• Direct (not dictate) formal approvals including the establishment of terms and
conditions of implementation and follow-up.
• Results in the satisfactory prediction of the adverse effects of proposed actions
and their mitigation using conventional and customised techniques.
• Serves as an adaptive, organisational learning process in which the lessons
experienced are fed back into policy, institutional, and project design.
EIA IMPROVEMENT

Improvement to EIA Procedure

• Focus on cumulative impacts


• Make the process more problem-focused and value-based.
• Move from react and cure to anticipate and prevent.
• Link policy, planning and assessment.
Focus on Cumulative Impacts

• The concept of cumulative effects, of the incremental reduction and erosion


of the integrity of natural systems from the additive and compound
interactions of multiple activities provides a generic perspective for
unsustainable development.
• Cumulative analysis is one response to the structural inadequacy of the
conventional project and site specific application of the EIA process. An
explicit attempt to analyse and monitor cumulative changes within a
regional or landscape system lends itself to the establishment of natural
ecological thresholds or carrying capacities.
• Shifting the time and space scales from conventional to cumulative impact
analysis, for example, compounds the pervasive problems of complexity
and uncertainty.
• Initial indications are that cumulative effects may be more tractable to
landscape-level, risk-orientated analysis of fundamental properties than
acquiring and aggregating more and more information on more variables.
Problem-Focused and Value-Based

• A conventional EIA tends to focus on a limited range of projects and activities.


Many other development decisions and resource management practices escape
any form of assessment, even though their collective impact may be greater than
that of individual large scale and hazardous facilities.
• Urban development is a classic example, it is characterised by a recurring
perception that human settlements are somehow detached from their resource
base and the imperative of sustainability.
• It has been a long-standing concern for making the EIA process more responsive
and user friendly, relevant to the dynamics of interest-based and value-based
conflict and its impacts.
• A greater diversity of EIA instruments should open the door to creative
experiments to empower communities and interest groups to assume greater
responsibility for assessing, monitoring and controlling development impacts
and becoming involved in negotiated settlements of dispute.
• In this context, specific emphasis should be given to tapping the ecological and
social knowledge that exists among native and rural peoples who follow the
traditional ecology for resource use.
Move from React and Cure to Anticipate and Prevent

• It has particular applications in emerging areas for EIA, such as the human
safety and health aspects of assessment, and impact and risk analysis can also be
used to scrutinise the introduction of new forms of technology, such as bio-
engineering or the genetic manipulation of wild and domesticated species.
• The notion of sustainable re-development points to EIA of damaged and
degraded ecosystems for purposes of rehabilitation and restoration. These
existing and emerging concerns will add new components and development
proposals.
• Above all, however, the key to fostering a more anticipatory approach to EIA
involves placing this process within a more integrated system for environmental
and economic decision-makings.
EIA IMPROVEMENT

Improvement to EIA Procedure

• Focus on cumulative impacts


• Make the process more problem-focused and value-based.
• Move from react and cure to anticipate and prevent.
• Link policy, planning and assessment.
EIA IMPROVEMENT

Widening the Scope of EIA Procedures

• Incorporation of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)


• Environmental Management System and Environmental Auditing
• Incorporation of Integrated Environmental Assessment (IEA)
• Incorporation of Environmental Impact Design (EID)
Incorporation of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)

• One of the most recent trends in EIA is its application at earlier, more strategic
stages of development at the level of policies, plans and programmes.

• In the USA the so called SEA has been carried out as an extension of project
EIA in a relatively low-key manner.

• Definition: SEA as the formalised, systematic an comprehensive process of


evaluating the environmental impacts of a policy, plan or programme and its
alternative, including the preparation of a written report on the findings of that
evaluation, and using the findings in publicly accountable decision-making.

• SEA is the EIA of policies, plans and programmes. It is often considered to be a


tired or nested process in which the EIAs of individual projects are carried out
within the framework established by the SEA of a programme (a group of
similar projects) which in turn takes place within the framework of an SEA of a
plan, and before that of a policy.

• The role of SEA is also seen to be more than merely expand EIA to the more
strategic levels of decision-making.
Environmental Management System and Environmental Auditing

• Another important extension of the scope of EIA is completing the circle or


closing the loop of the project through application of environmental
management system (EMS) and environmental monitoring and auditing.
• EMS, like EIA is a tool which helps organisation to take more responsibility for
their actions by determining their aims, putting them into practice and
monitoring whether they are being achieved.
• In term of its orientation to future development, EMS is involved in the review,
assessment and incremental improvement of an existing organisation’s
environmental effects. Thus, EMS can be seen as a continuation of EIA
principles into the operational stage of a project.
• Another interesting link between EIA and EMS is the project EIAs are
increasingly used as a starting point for their project’s EMSs. For instance,
emission limits stated in an EIA can be used as objectives in the company’s
EMS, once it is operational. The EMS can also test whether the mitigation
measures discussed in the EIA have been installed and whether they work
effectively in practice.
• In the process of environmental auditing, the organisations will increasingly
generate environmental information that will also be useful when carrying out
EIAs. Environmental audit report is normally contained information on various
environmental aspects. For example data on environmental conditions in the
specific area could be used in EIA baseline studies.
• The report may be also useful when determining suitable locations for new
developments by identifying sites that are particularly environmentally sensitive
and should clearly be avoided or those that are environmentally robust and more
suitable for development.

• The findings of an environmental audit for example the levels of emissions,


types of pollution abatement equipment and operating procedures used to
minimise emission, and the effectiveness of the pollution control equipment and
operating procedures could be useful for determining the impact of similar
future developments and mitigation measures. Some of these audits are also
likely to provide models of best practice, which other organisation or company
can aspire to in their existing and future development facilities.

• Organisation’s policy impact assessment (which is part of the EMS) is useful in


clarifying its views on environmental matters and highlighting future policy
directions that may influence the planning decision and the future of the project.
This policy impact assessment is also likely to generate a need for EIAs of
policies, plans and programmes.
Incorporation of Integrated Environmental Assessment (IEA)

• In IEA, the decision is based on the extent to which various biophysical, social
and economic impacts can be traded. For example, decision-makers might be
unwilling to trade critical biophysical assets (e.g. river system and the quality of
water supply) for jobs or lifestyle, but willing to trade less critical biophysical
assets.
• IEA differs from traditional EIA in that it is consciously multi-disciplinary, does
not take public’s participation or the ultimate users of EIA for granted and
recognises the critical role of complexity and uncertainty in most decisions
about the environment.
• Hence it tolerates a much broader array of methods and perspectives for
evaluating and judging alternatives courses of action.
Incorporation of Environmental Impact Design (EID)

• The EIA limitations on its original role as a stand alone report can be redressed
by transferring much of the philosophy, the insights and techniques which are
currently use in environmental assessments, directly into planning and design
activities.
• A further evolution of this concept is to use EIA to identify basic environmental
constraints before the design process is begun, but then allow designers freedom
to design innovative and attractive structures as long as they meet those
constraints.
• Traditionally, EIAs are carried out on projects in which most of the structural
elements have already been finalised. In EID-oriented approaches there is less
unmodifiable design and thus more scope for introducing environmentally sound
design as mitigation measures.

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