Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA)
Assignment 2
Impact assessment using BACI
Completion Record
Student name
Type your name here
Available marks
100
Final mark
Marker to enter final mark
Completion date
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Assignment 2 – BACI
EIA
Purpose
The purpose of this assignment is to provide a summative assessment for the unit
MSS025002A – Assess the environmental risk or impact of a project activity or process. As
the main focus of this unit is determining the impact assessment of an activity or process,
we explore the data using formal techniques from the National Water Quality Monitoring
Strategy series of documents.
Structure
The assignment is broken into two major parts as follows, which reflect the elements of the
unit;

Part 1 – Performing the statistical analysis

Part 2 – Determining the measureable perturbation of change

Part 3 – Summarising the assessment
Resources required
To undertake this assignment, you will need access to the following documents and
information from the relevant Subject Study Materials pages;

The data sheet

The NWQMS instructions
Submission

Provide the spreadsheet consisting of
o the statistical analysis
o The measurable perturbations

Also submit a word document which explains, details or otherwise summarises the
impact assessment

Submit both documents using the following file format
Firstname-lastname-eia-asst-2-2014

The assignment is due no later than Thursday 11th December 2014
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Assignment 2 – BACI
EIA
Part 1 – Treating the data
Background
The data set you will receive covers 15 years of environmental monitoring for surface
waters associated with the Awaba Solid Waste landfill facility in Lake Macquarie. The
surface water enters Lake Macquarie through nearby creek systems, and as such, any poor
quality water arising from poor landfill practices can have a detrimental effect on the water
quality in the lake.
The data set is in its raw state, and has not been entered very well, so it needs to be cleaned
before use. Perform the following tasks on the raw data for each sheet in the workbook;

Ensure non-data cells are blank instead of having text or wildcards

Change values such as ‘<’ or ‘>’ to half the given value (i.e. <1 would become 0.5)

Ensure that dates are in the same format

Ensure all data is set to 1 decimal place except for conductivity which is 3 d.p.

When clean, highlight the values in each column and format to number

Remove the ‘comments’ column (if present)

Ensure that no other columns have been duplicated.
The sheets should now be clean.
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Assignment 2 – BACI
EIA
Part 2 – Basic statistics
With clean data, we can now set about calculating some basic measures. Apply the
following calculations for each column of data;

Average

Mode

Median

Max

Min

Range

Standard Deviation
Next we need to apply the NWQMS criteria for determining the impacts.
For the Reference and Control sheets
Apply the following techniques to the ‘Reference’ and ‘Control’ data sheets.

Create a new column with the heading of ‘Baseline’ for the Reference and Control
sheets

Move down twenty four (24) rows (should be row 27) and enter the following
formula (which is based on Excel 2010 or later)
=PERCENTILE.INC(range,0.8)
Where the range is the first 24 months of Nitrate data for that sheet, and hit enter. For
older versions of excel, the function will be the same, but without the .INC.

Autofill the function down to the last row of data.
For the Impacts sheets

Create a new column with the heading of Median for the three Impact sheets

Move down twenty four (24) rows (should be row 27) and enter the formula (which
is based on Excel 2010 or later)
=MEDIAN(range,0.8)
Where the range is the first 24 months of Nitrate data for that sheet and hit enter. For older
versions of excel, the function will be the same.

Autofill the function down to the last row of data.
You should now have new columns of data on all five data sheets, with the first 24 months
missing.
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Assignment 2 – BACI
EIA
Part 3 – Graphing the data
Note that for all graphs, we are only ever using the raw nitrate data, the 80th%ile baseline
data or the Median data.
You will create four separate graphs, each consisting of the following data
Graph 1 – Impact 1
Create a line graph with the following data;

The RAW Reference Nitrate data (as blue dots, no line)

The Reference baseline (80th%ile) data (solid blue line, no dots)

The Control Baseline (80th%ile) data (solid orange line, no dots)

The Median data for Impact 1 (solid red line, no dots)
Graph 2 – Impact 2
Create a line graph with the following data;

The RAW Reference Nitrate data (as blue dots, no line)

The Reference baseline (80th%ile) data (solid blue line, no dots)

The Control Baseline (80th%ile) data (solid orange line, no dots)

The Median data for Impact 2 (solid red line, no dots)
Graph 3 – Impact 3
Create a line graph with the following data;

The RAW Reference Nitrate data (as blue dots, no line)

The Reference baseline (80th%ile) data (solid blue line, no dots)

The Control Baseline (80th%ile) data (solid orange line, no dots)

The Median data for Impact 3 (solid red line, no dots)
Graph 4 – Reference Only
Create a line graph with the following data;

The RAW Reference Nitrate data (as blue dots, no line)

The Reference baseline (80th%ile) data (solid blue line, no dots)
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Assignment 2 – BACI

The Median data for Impact 1 (solid green line, no dots)

The Median data for Impact 2 (solid red line, no dots)

The Median data for Impact 3 (solid orange line, no dots)
EIA
Part 4 – Identifying the measurable perturbations
This Part requires you to read and interpret the NWQMS Guidelines. You can download the
Guidelines from the following address;
http://www.environment.gov.au/water/quality/national-water-quality-managementstrategy
You are after Document 4, Volume 1 – The Guidelines (Chapters 1 – 7)
You are to read Chapter 7 (Monitoring & Assessment), specifically Section 7.4 and
determine the magnitude of the triggers for each site. HINT: Read the highlighted box on
Page 7.4-4 of the Guidelines.
The question remains, how far above the trigger do we go before we act?
Once we define the measurable perturbations, we can graph the triggers on individual
graphs and see what action has been triggered at each site.
Your teacher will discuss this in detail prior to your doing of this part.
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Assignment 2 – BACI
EIA
Part 5 – Summarising the impacts
Provide a 1-2 page report which summarises the degree of impact (if any) of the solid waste
facility on the water quality. You are allowed to be subjective even though you have
objective data and assessment (I really just want to know how you ‘feel’ about the impact
measurements!).
In your answer, make sure you explain what BACI is and which data is B, A, C and I.
Summary
Click here to enter text.
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