Introduction and Principles Flashcards
When was EIA introduced to EU?
1988 EU Directive
Implemented in UK planning regulations
What is the UNECE (1991) definition of an EIA?
‘an assessment of the impact of planned activity on the environment’
What is the IAIA (2009) definition of an EIA?
‘the process of identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the biophysical, social and other relevant effects of proposed development proposals prior to major decisions being taken and commitments made’
What is project screening?
Is an EIA needed?
Specific location dependent legislation will determine this
What is scoping?
An early stage, which seeks to identify, from all of a projects possible impacts and alternatives, which are the most crucial/significant.
What should the description of the project/development include?
Purpose and rationale, various characteristics (inc stages of development), location, processes
What is the environmental baseline?
A description of the environment in its current and predicted state to take account changes to the environment as a results of human changes
After an identification of main and predicted impacts, what should follow in the Environmental Impact Statement?
Evaluation and assessment of significance to allow a focus on the main adverse or beneficial impacts
What should happen at all times throughout and EIA?
Public participation
What do the review and decision-making stages involve?
Review: systemic appraisal of the quality of the EIS, as a contribution to the decision making process
Decision-making: involves consideration by the relevant authority of the EIS together with other material considerations
What is the difference between post-decision monitoring and auditing?
Post decision monitoring is the recording of outcomes associated with development impacts, after a decision to proceed, can contribute to effective project management.
Auditing: follows from monitoring, compare actual outcomes with predicted and assess the quality of predictions/effectiveness of mitigation. A vital step.
What is an EIS? What is an ideology behind it?
Environmental Impact Statement. Prevention is better than cure, a thorough EIS can highlight significant adverse enviro impacts and lead to abandonment or significant alterations to projects
What is the benefit of the non-technical summary?
Improves communication with the various parties involved
Give 3 purposes of an EIA and a summary of each.
1) An aid to decision making
wider in scope than a CBA, and helps clarify trade offs which may occur, can be a basis for negotiation
2) An framework for developers to consider location and design through
more enviro sensitive development, improved relations between stakeholders, link to green consumerism, corporate social responsibility
3) A vehicle for stakeholder consultation and participation
Increases information for those affected by development.
What is an environmental impact of a project or development?
The resultant changes in environmental parameters, in space and time, compared with what would have happened had the project not been undertaken.
Name 4 types of impacts.
Biophysical/socio-economic reversible/irreversible long-term/short-term direct/indirect or secondary impacts quantifiable/qualitative actual/perceived
What you should compare all impacts to?
A do nothing situation
Give 2 examples of what might initiate a project.
Market demand e.g. shopping centre, wind farm
Necessity e.g. flood protection works
Prestige role e.g. Grands Trauvaux in Paris
What dimensions make up the ‘environment’?
Biophysical (air, water, land), socio-cultural (well-being, services etc.), scales (local, regional, naitonal, global), time (baseline data to show change)
Are EIA’s a science? Why?
They contain unexamined, unexplained value judgements and are always political. Work is selectivley used (Beattie 1995)
Why does an EIA need to be adaptive?
The world is rapidly changing e.g. climate change, recessions, an adaptive EIA copes with uncertainty (Holling 1978)
EIA accounts for strong and weak sustainability, developers may view it as administrative exercise, whereas from the ‘deep green’ perspective it lack enough certainty about environmental impacts
What are SIAs and HIAs? How are they different?
Social Impact Assessment
Health Impact Assessment
In some countries these are separate from EIA (Vanclay 2013?)
See also EqIA Equality Impact Assessment
What is an SEA?
Strategic Environmental Assessment: expands on scale of EIA to strategic policy level. Focus is mainly biophysical
What was the UKs early approach to EIA?
1947 Town and Country Planning Act
Informal
Large projects dealt with by secretary of state
What was the USAs early approach to EIA?
NEPA National Environmental Policy Act 1969
To develop a procedure so the unquantified environmental amenities and values are given appropriate consideration alongside traditional economic and technical considerations
Summarise the NYC Westway case study.
6 lane highway proposed in NYC including landfill on the banks of the Hudson River, road, parks and real estate development $1.3 billion committed by federal gov, approval on all levels
1980 Initial approval delayed by CO concerns in highway tunnels, but were overturned despite objections from NGOs and NEPA
1984 significant (key legal term) adverse impacts were found on striped bass, judge ruled authorities had failed to comply with Clean Water Act and NEPA
Project not taken forward, power of EIA in US demonstrated
