1,721,074 research outputs found
Embracing evolutionary change to advance impact assessment (IA)
No full textImpact assessment (IA) originated as, and continues to be, an instrument that contributes towards sustainable development. In response to the considerable sustainability challenges facing our planet this article argues for the acceleration of IA’s evolutionary approach through focusing on effective practic
Chapter 1: Introducing the roots, evolution and effectiveness of sustainability assessment
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Introduction to EIA follow-up
No full textEnvironmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a process for taking account of the potential environmental consequences of a proposed action during the planning, design, decision-making and implementation stages of that action. Follow-up should be an integral part of this process. From its origins under the National Environmental Policy Act 1969 in the US, EIA procedures have been widely adopted throughout the world. EIA can be undertaken at many different jurisdictional levels including: •local level (e.g. local government procedures) •state or provincial level (e.g. state governments in the US, Canada and Australia have implemented their own EIA procedures) •national or federal level (e.g. countrywide procedures) •supranational or international level involving more than one country (e.g. European Community Directives for impact assessment that apply throughout the European Union).</p
Making sense of significance in Environmental Impact Assessment
Full text linkImpact significance determination lies at the heart of environmental impact assessment (EIA) but conflict and misunderstanding around the concept is common. This paper attempts to make sense of impact significance in EIA based on four essential components of significance synthesised from the literature to ensure that: (1) a clear operational framework for significance determination applies throughout EIA, (2) attention focuses only on significant issues, (3) the term significance is specified and applied consistently, and (4) significance determinations are transparent to all EIA stakeholders. To provide a practical perspective, the extent to which EIA institutional provisions in Western Australia uphold these significance determination components is reviewed. Overall the Western Australian approach generally meets all four components, but areas for improvement include better guidance encouraging proponents to adopt a more consultative approach to determining relevant environmental factors and objectives to better focus EIA, and distinguishing between terms used for significance within EIA documentation. A new significance framework approach in Western Australia represents a clear attempt to uplift practice, but opportunity exists to improve the way impact significance determinations are presented to stakeholders. EIA practitioners may benefit from mapping and making sense of impact significance in their own jurisdiction using the four components presented
Investigating the effectiveness of strategic environmental assessment in Thailand
Full text linkStrategic environmental assessment (SEA) was introduced in Thailand in 2005, aiming to direct decision making at the strategic level (policy, programme, plan) towards sustainable development (SD). Given reforms to the SEA requirements in 2018, it is timely to evaluate emerging SEA experience in the Thai context to inform future practice. The effectiveness of 14 SEAs was investigated based on a version of a recently published framework which substitutes ‘legitimacy’ for normative effectiveness and pluralism, modified through the addition of disaggregated sub-criteria associated with each dimension of effectiveness (procedural, substantive, transactive and legitimacy), to facilitate a richer understanding of the effectiveness of practice. This more detailed effectiveness framework enabled a comprehensive evaluation of practice, and should be transferable to other contexts. The findings suggest that SEA in Thailand currently partially achieves procedural, substantive, and transactive effectiveness. Achieving some elements of substantive effectiveness where practice is currently weak is considered to be particularly challenging, and also determinative in the achievement of legitimacy. Consequently, the majority of SEAs evaluated in this study failed to achieve legitimacy
Managing marine environments and decision-making requires better application of the physical sedimentary sciences
Full text linkEffective management of marine environments requires a sound understanding of the relevant physical sedimentary sciences. Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a key management and decision-making tool employed in Australia for coastal and marine developments. This article examines the veracity of the application of the marine physical sciences within the EIA process, using turbidity measurement and sediment transport pathways as examples. A review of EIA guidance reveals deficiencies in regulation. Turbidity measurement is poorly understood and performed in current practice, while a focus on protecting marine habitats largely ignores those physical sedimentary processes, such as long-term bed-sediment transport pathways, that create and maintain these habitats. Thus evaluations of impacts of offshore activities such as channel dredging and spoil emplacement at sea are fundamentally flawed. An extensive body of scientific knowledge is already available on marine physical processes, and equivalent information for assessments of terrestrial development is routinely taken into consideration. Perhaps practice for the marine environment lags behind that for terrestrial settings or is it a case of ‘out of sight – out of mind’? We call on environmental management professionals to increase engagement with the physical processes that determine the quality of marine environments
Reflections on impact assessment research scholarship from editor and academic perspectives
Full text linkReflections on impact assessment research scholarship are presented drawn from our experiences as journal editors and academics with respect to the nature of impact assessment research and the quality of impact assessment research writing. We support the call for more empirical impact assessment research studies, especially large and longer-term studies. While the international field of impact assessment research is healthy overall, we would like to see better international and multi-disciplinary collaboration. We also urge careful attention be given by impact assessment research writers to having clear aims, robust methods accounts and to write rigorously and insightfully for the international impact assessment journal readership
Designing an effective sustainability assessment process
Full text linkAt this stage of the book it should be clear that sustainability assessment is very complex and sustainability assessment needs careful design if it is to help to achieve sustainable development. Chapters 3 and 8 have set the scene for considering what matters in sustainability assessment, while chapters 9-12 provided examples of some existing practice which is summarised in this chapter in order to highlight the critical areas which need to be addressed if practice is to be considered effective (judged by our own evaluation framework). Chapters 13 and 14 dealt specifically with the issues of pluralism and knowledge and learning and we recognise that these are critical to effective Sustainability Assessment, and have provided some insights on the best ways forward.
This chapter aims to help future practitioners navigate through the sustainability assessment design process. We argue that it is not (necessarily) appropriate to pick an off-the-shelf process, but that it is necessary to gain an understanding of the ways in which sustainability assessment will influence outcomes, values and perceptions so that it is designed to be fit-for-purpose. Indeed, the practice chapters have made it clear that in some countries, whilst the approaches taken have a sustainability remit, this in no way relies on formal or legal process requirements. In designing sustainability assessment, our argument is that an effective assessment process seeks to achieve the six imperatives of sustainability (as set out in Chapter 1 by Gibson), which must always be considered as criteria against which the process will be tested, through achieving effectiveness in all aspects of the evaluation framework. If efforts are not made to achieve effectiveness in all aspects, there will be a gap between the aspiration of the assessment process and the goals which are achieved
Land take and the effectiveness of project screening in Environmental Impact Assessment: Findings from an empirical study
Full text linkLand take is emerging as a global environmental concern, and is particularly critical in intensively developed and land-scarce regions. This paper seeks to understand the effectiveness of the screening stage of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in addressing land take. Screening is the stage where a decision is made as to whether an EIA is required for a project. In many jurisdictions, screening results in three pathways: full EIA directly, preliminary EIA only, or preliminary EIA followed by full EIA. We compared the land take of 217 projects triggering the different pathways in a study region in Italy over a 15-year time interval. Land take was quantified by overlaying the footprint of the projects with a land cover map.
The results show that while more attention was given to projects with larger land take impacts overall, the cumulative land take from smaller projects not triggering full EIA was considerable (40% of overall land take). The case-by-case examination conducted through the preliminary EIA was found to work better for some project types (ski areas and small urban development), than for others (quarries). Our findings lead us to advocate improvements in current screening procedures to ensure that the land take impacts are quantified and made explicit in preliminary EIA reports. Our evidence-based approach to determining land take in EIA provides a compelling basis for understanding ways to improve EIA policies, guidance and practice
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