Environmental Impact Assessment
Dr Tebogo Mashifana
What is Environmental Engineering?
Definition: The application of science and engineering knowledge and concepts to
care for and/or restore our natural environment and/or solve environmental
problems.
What did you learn from Environmental Engineering?
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Who does it affect?
• Everyone & Everything!
•
•
•
•
•
•
plants
insects
animals
humans
ecosystems
our planet
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What are environmental issues?
• Three areas:
❑air quality
❑land quality
❑water quality – Recent
case Vaal River
contamination
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Why is air quality important? Recent case of sulfur
contaminant
• Poor air quality can lead
to:
❑mog
❑respiratory & other
illnesses
❑acid rain
❑global warming
From where do air pollutants come?
Corvid 19 – medical waste
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Land Quality
What problems arise from land pollution?
• Land pollution: Destruction of the Earth’s surface
caused by human activities and the misuse of natural
resources.
• Natural resources: Land and raw materials that exist
naturally in the environment undisturbed by humans.
• Renewable resource: A natural resource that can be
replaced by a natural process.
Acid mine drainageacidic water that kills
plant and animal life-
Landfills
. Their decaying materials release
methane gas. which is another
greenhouse gas
• Non-renewable resource: A natural resource that
cannot be produced or re-grown or reused.
Pesticides and herbicides –
chemicals kills plants, insects
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Unit 1. Environmental Assessments
Objective: Highlight different types of environmental assessments, and the context within which
Integrated Environmental Assessment and reporting (IEA) has evolved
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the module, you should be able:
• To highlight the different types of environmental assessment.
❑State of the environment (SOE)
❑Integrated Environmental Assessment and reporting (IEA)
❑Environmental impact assessment (EIA)
❑Strategic environmental assessment (SEA)
❑Corporate environmental assessment and reporting
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Unit 1. Environmental Assessments (Assessment
criteria)
Demonstrate an understanding of Environmental Assessments
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Environmental Assessment
Environmental assessment implies the determination of the
environmental consequences, or impact, of proposed projects or
activities.
In this context, impact means change—any change, positive or
negative—from a desirability standpoint.
An environmental assessment is, therefore, a study of the probable
changes in the various socioeconomic and biophysical characteristics of
the environment which may result from a proposed or impending action.
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Why Environmental Assessment Is Needed?
The necessity for preparing an environmental assessment may vary with individual
projects or proposed actions:
• For many actions, there is a legal basis for requiring such an analysis.
• May be required as a condition of passing legislation for a particular project.
• May be undertaken simply for incorporation of environmental considerations into
planning and design, recognizing the merit of such amenities on an economic,
aesthetic, or otherwise desirable basis.
• Good professional practice may require this analysis even if law or regulation does
not.
• The incorporation of environmental considerations in business practices is an
extremely important aspect of environmental assessment.
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the need for environmental
Environmental Laws and RegulationsWhy
legislation and regulation?
• Some environmental legislation
and regulation is needed to
protect the health and welfare
of
society,
and
market
incentives alone will probably
never work. i.e. it would be very
difficult to put a dollar value on
discharge of toxic materials,
such
as
polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCBs) or mercury, to
the environment.
• For long-term protection of the
life-support systems which is
important
for
sustained
economic development.
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Shortcomings of Environmental Legislation and
Regulations
Some of the concerns related to environmental regulations are:
• Regulations seem to be structured in such a way that the costs are often excessive as compared to the benefits they
generate.
• Regulations are command-and-control type (i.e., they contain few or no economic incentives for compliance).
• Consequently, in a free-market economy, they are ineffective and do not preserve elements of voluntary choice.
• Regulations are ineffective because they lack properly structured incentives for achieving social goals.
• It is widely believed that command-and-control regulations generate inefficiencies, at both the micro- and
macroeconomic levels.
• Some environmental regulations require unnecessary paperwork and cause unnecessary delays in completion schedules,
which, in turn, create additional costs.
• Many regulations at different government levels, such as federal, state, and local, are duplicative and, at times,
incompatible with each other; consequently, they create unnecessary work and inefficiencies. i.e. foundry sand in South
Africa
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The different types of Environmental Assessments
include but are not limited to
• State of the Environment (SOE)
• Integrated Environmental Assessment and Reporting (IEA)
• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
• Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)
• Corporate Environmental Assessment and Reporting
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State of the Environment (SOE)
A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an
organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have
an influence in their survival, development, and evolution
• Main focus is on the biophysical aspect of the environment and less about the human dimension except in the context of the
pressures humanity exerts on the environment
• Designed to communicate credible, timely and accessible information about the condition of the environment to decisionmakers and society.
• Usually undertaken by a government agency in fulfillment of a statutory requirement
• Typically has no outlook component
•
It gives information on what is happening to the environment.
• This information is very useful and may be used to analyse trends in key variables of the environment.
• Provides the basis for IEA
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Integrated Environmental Assessment and
Reporting (IEA)
• State of the environment (SOE) reporting has evolved over the past three decades into Integrated Environmental Assessment
and reporting (IEA).
• With the emergence of the concept of sustainable development – whose three main pillars are social, economic and
environment – practitioners responded with the introduction of IEA, which integrates social, economic and environmental
issues in the analyses
•
Integrated environmental assessment and reporting tries to show the cause-effect linkages of human and natural action on the
environment, and in turn, the resultant environmental change in the state of the environment and human well-being.
• The end result of environmental assessment should be more than just knowing the state of the environment. It should give
policymakers and other stakeholders some guidance on how to better manage the environment.
• In order to achieve this, information obtained from such reports should be integrated with other social and economic data and
information to assist in policy formulation for the environment.
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Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
• Of the various environmental assessment processes, EIA is arguably one of the most famous or notorious, depending on the
advocates.
• Often in the past, investors/developers have viewed EIA with suspicion as a tool used by environmentalists to undermine
development.
• However, EIA is a tool used to determine the social, economic and environmental impacts of major developments in order to
determine the necessary mitigatory measures.
•
EIA is considered a policy response, along with other policies such as multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and
natural resource management laws and institutions.
• The Southern African Institute for Environmental Assessment (SAIEA) describes environmental assessment as: a process to
identify, evaluate and assess the potential effects on the environment of a proposed development before a major decision or
commitment is made.
• The main aims of the assessment are to:
❑ Understand the consequences or impacts of the proposed development on the environment.
❑ Identify ways in which the development can be improved. These could include ways
✓ To minimize negative impacts and ways to enhance its benefits.
✓ Provide this information to decision-makers.
(SAIEA 2005)
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Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)
• EIA of the Adjarala hydroelectric project (Togo-Benin): the aquatic environment component
• According
to
Opio-Odongo
and
Woodsworth
to both environmental protection and sustainable development by:
(2006)
SEA
contributes
to
decisions
related
❑ Providing broader environmental vision.
❑ Considering the effects of proposed strategic actions (policy, programme and plan).
❑ Identifying the best practicable environmental option.
❑ Providing early warning of cumulative effects and large-scale changes
❑ Contributing to integrated policy-making
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) has six distinct features:
❑ Helping to incorporate sustainability principles in the policy making process.
❑ Helping to influence and improve decision making in ways that ensures integration and sustainability of the environment.
❑ Enabling the tiering of environmental sustainability and ensuring an integrated approach to policy, planning and programming.
❑ Providing better context for assessment of cumulative effects.
❑ Providing the context for screening for lower level environmental assessment through the EIA.
❑ Enabling the anticipation of impacts that can occur at project level, helping to strengthen the attendant EIA.and planning.
(SAIEA 2005)
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Corporate Environmental Assessment and
Reporting
• The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has developed globally applicable Sustainability Reporting Guidelines to facilitate the private
sector's public account of its economic, environmental, and social performance in relation to its operations, products, and services.
• The GRI, "seeks to elevate sustainability reporting to the same level of rigor, comparability, credibility, and verifiability expected of
financial reporting, while serving the information needs of a broad array of stakeholders from civil society, government, labour, and the
private business community itself” (GRI 2002).
• According to GRI, by 2002, organizations worldwide had produced about 3 000 sustainability, environmental, social and citizenship
reports (GRI 2002). The GRI guidelines include economic, environmental and social indicators.
(SAIEA 2005)
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Exercise 1
• What are the different types of environmental assessment and reporting processes which have been
covered in this module?
• What are the similarities and differences among these environmental assessment and reporting
processes? Can you explain?
• Identify the main target audience of each assessment process and describe the similarities and
differences of the needs of these target audiences.
• Can you explore opportunities for synergy among these different environmental processes?
(SAIEA 2005)
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Traditional SOE Reports
• Early environmental assessment reports focused on reporting the SOE as it existed at the time of
reporting. These are now referred to as “traditional SOE Reports”
• Traditional SOE Reports have been useful:
❑in pointing out existing environmental trends and conditions.
❑in providing key leverage points to decision-makers.
❑in giving us an inventory of resources which can be used as a starting point for planning sustainable
development.
State of the environment (SOE)
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Traditional SOE Reports
• Are, however, weak in many areas:
❑They are narrative syntheses of the state of the environment, not analyses intended to plan
sustainable development
❑Are not integrated with the assessment of key driving forces and policies that cause or influence the
environmental trends that have been identified.
❑Are not analytically linked to the potential future outcomes of the current state of the environment
• To overcome these, SOE must be transformed into IEA with backward and forward linkages to what is
continuously happening to the environment.
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The evolution of IEA
• Need for broad-based assessment
• If we are to respond to interconnected issues. we require:
❑Realistic assessment and reporting practices that communicate problems and solutions to decisionmakers and the public.
❑A broader assessment and reporting process that takes into account the links among ecological,
socioeconomic and policy issues more systematically.
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IEA needs to incorporate policy assessment for the
whole system
• The intentional or unintentional consequences of policies are often dispersed over space, sectors of
the economy or environmental media.
• The effects of policy are delayed in time.
• The consequences of policies can be incremental and cumulative, they may also represent root causes
of environmental problems.
• Human well-being and vulnerability are affected by the system as a whole and the policies used to
manage it.
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IEA: Human well-being
• Human and natural driving forces and pressures are impacting the environment
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IEA: Human well-being and vulnerability
• Environmental services and human well-being affected, widening gap between the haves and havenots, and increasing vulnerability for the latter
• Achieving human well-being is a balancing act.
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IEA multidimensional and incorporates other
elements not in the traditional SOE reporting
• Environmental media (state-and-trends of land, water, atmosphere and biodiversity)
• Functional (provision of environmental goods-and-services)
• Resource sectors (e.g. links with energy use, tourism, agriculture, manufacturing, mining and trade)
• Crosscutting issues (relating to production, consumption, gender, poverty, human wellbeing and
vulnerability)
• Environmental issues (land degradation, air and water pollution, disasters, overexploitation of
resources)
• Interlinkages within and between all of the above
• Policy responses and analyses
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IEA
• Links environmental state-and-trends with policy responses
• Integrates environmental analysis with social and economic trends and
policies
• Incorporates global and sub-global perspectives
• Incorporates historical and future perspectives
• Involves diverse environment-socioeconomic expertise
• IEA answers five consecutive questions in sequence,
as shown below, from which we can get
information to relate socioeconomic activities,
environment and policy
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Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
• A tool used to determine the social, economic, and environmental
impact of major developments, and proposes measures to mitigate
impacts.
• Is project and site specific
• In the context of IEA, it is a policy response
• Demands for public participation
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Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)
• Deals with the effects of a proposed strategic action (policy, programme and
plan) and identifies best practicable environmental option
• A decision-support tool
• Helps to incorporate sustainability principals in policy making process
• Provides a context for assessing cumulative effects of different projects or
initiatives
• Provides context for screening projects for EIA (fully fledged EIA or Reviews)
• In the IEA context, SEA are policy responses.
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REFLECTION
ACTIVITIES: 15 minutes
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Learning Unit 1 – Part B
The EIA process
Objective: To provide information about how EIAs are, and should be, carried out.
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EIA – Methods/Process
• In addition to the decision on whether a project should proceed, an EIA
will consider aspects such as project alternatives and mitigation
measures that should be implemented if the development is allowed.
• The findings of an EIA are presented in a document called an
Environmental Statement or Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
• EIAs involve individual assessments of aspects of the environment (e.g.
population, landscape, heritage, air, climate, soil, water, fauna, flora)
likely to be significantly affected by a proposed project.
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The EIA process
Procedures in the assessment of an environmental component for an EIA (developer has
conducted feasibility studies, and that screening has already been carried out). UK context
but universal
The South African EIA process (after Rossouw et al., 2003)
EIA process: Scoping and baseline studies
• Scoping is an essential first step in the assessment of a component.
• The main aims are:
• To identify at an early stage (when the project design is relatively amenable to
modification) what key receptors, impacts and project alternatives to consider, what
methodologies to use, and who to consult.
• To ensure that resources and time are focused on important impacts and receptors;
• To establish early communication between the developer, consultants, statutory
consultees and other interest groups who can provide advice and information;
• To warn the developer of any constraints that may pose problems if not discovered until
later in the EIA process.
Baseline studies form the backbone of
component assessments. It is only when
they provide sound information on the
socio economic or environmental systems
in the impact area that valid impact
predictions can be made, and effective
mitigation and monitoring programmes
formulated.
The description and evaluation of baseline
conditions should include:
• a clear presentation of methods and
results;
•
indications
of
limitations
and
uncertainties, e.g. in relation to data
accuracy
and completeness;
• an assessment of the value of key
receptors and their sensitivity to impacts.
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The scoping and EIA process
Full scoping and EIA process
EIA process: Scoping exercise
• The scoping exercise should provide a ground plan for subsequent steps by making a preliminary assessment of:
• The project’s potential impacts on component receptors, estimated from the project description (including its size, construction
requirements, operational features and secondary developments such as access roads) and the nature of components and receptors;
• The impact area/zone within which impacts are likely to be effective, estimated from the impact types and the nature of the surrounding
area and environmental components, e.g. impacts on air or water may be effective at considerable distances from the project site;
• Possible mitigation measures;
• The need and potential for monitoring;
• The methods and levels of study needed to obtain reliable baseline information that can be used to evaluate the baseline conditions,
make accurate impact predictions, and formulate adequate mitigation measures and monitoring procedures.
• The selection of methods should involve consideration of:
❑ the impact and receptor variables on which the studies will focus, and the accuracy and precision needed for each;
❑ the most appropriate methods for collecting, analysing and presenting information;
❑ the resource requirements and timing considerations, especially for field surveys;
❑ constraints such as the time and resources available.
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EIA process: Scoping methods
• Scoping checklists are a useful scoping tool,
particularly for tasks such as identifying key
impacts and receptors, and selecting
appropriate consultees and interest groups.
• The findings of the scoping exercise should be
documented in a scoping report that is made
available to the developer, participating
consultants, and consultees.
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EIA process: Impact prediction
• Impact prediction is fundamental to EIA, and the likely impacts of a project should be considered for all
environmental components.
• In order to predict the impacts of a development it is also necessary to consider changes in the baseline conditions
that may occur in its absence (a) prior to its initiation, which can be several years after production of the EIS, and
(b) during its projected lifetime.
• These can be assessed in relation to the current baseline conditions and information on past, present and
predicted conditions and trends.
• Most of the relevant information will have to be sought through the desk study although comparison of field survey
data with previous data can help to elucidate recent trends.
• According to the EIA legislation impact prediction should include assessment of:
❑Direct/primary impacts – that are a direct result of a development.
❑Indirect /secondary impacts – that may be ‘knock-on’ effects of (and in the same location as) direct impacts, but
are often produced in other locations and/or as a result of a complex pathway.
❑Cumulative impacts – that accrue over time and space from a number
Environmental Impact Statement
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EIA process: Impact prediction
• All impacts may be positive (beneficial) or negative (adverse), short, medium, or long term, reversible or
irreversible, and permanent or temporary.
• Ideally, impact prediction requires:
❑A good understanding of the nature of the proposed project, including project design, construction activities
and timing;
❑Knowledge of the outcomes of similar projects and EIAs, including the effectiveness of mitigation measures;
❑Knowledge of past, existing or approved projects which may cause interactive or cumulative impacts with the
project being assessed;
❑Predictions of the project’s impacts on other environmental components that may interact with that under
study;
❑Adequate information about the relevant receptors, and knowledge of how these may respond to
environmental changes/disturbances.
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EIA process: Mitigation
Mitigation measures aim to avoid, minimise, remedy or compensate for the predicted adverse impacts of the project.
They can include:
• Selection of alternative production techniques, and/or locations or alignments (of linear projects);
• Modification of the methods and timing of construction;
• Modification of design features, including site boundaries and features, e.g. landscaping;
• Minimisation of operational impacts, e.g. pollution and waste;
• Specific measures, perhaps outside the development site, to minimise particular impacts;
• Measures to compensate for losses, e.g. of amenity or habitat features.
Different mitigation measures will be needed in relation to specific impacts on
different environmental components and receptors.
The EIS should provide detailed prescriptions for the proposed measures
(that clearly relate to specific impacts), indicate how they would actually be put in place,
and propose how they might be modified if unforeseen post-project impacts arise.
Environmental Impact Statement
Much of the environment damage caused by
developments occurs during the construction
phase, and a problem is that construction is
usually contracted to a construction company who
will not have participated in the EIA process, and
over whom the developer may have little control
(Wathern 1999). Consequently, there is a need to
provide construction phase management plans,
ideally as part of overall project environmental
management plans .
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Presentation of findings and proposals in the EIS
• The information presented in the EIS must be clear and, at least in the nontechnical summary, should be in a
form that can be understood by ‘non-experts’ without compromising its integrity.
• It should also be ‘transparent’, e.g. in relation to limitations and uncertainties.
• Presentation methods vary between components, but can include the use of maps, graphs/charts, tables and
photographs.
• The EIS must be an integrated document, and this will necessitate assessing the component in relation to
others, e.g. to evaluate its relative importance, and ensure that potential conflicts of interest have been
addressed.
Environmental Impact Statement
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EIA process: Monitoring
• Monitoring can be defined as the continuous assessment of environmental or socioeconomic variables by the systematic
collection of specific data in space and time.
• It can be strictly continuous, e.g. using recording instruments, but more commonly involves periodic repeat data
collection, usually by the same or similar methods as in baseline surveys.
• Monitoring in EIA can include:
❑ Baseline monitoring – which may be carried out over seasons or years to quantify ranges of natural variation and/or
directions and rates of change, that are relevant to impact prediction and mitigation. This can avoid the frequent criticism
that baseline studies are only ‘snapshots’ in time. However, time constraints in EIA usually preclude lengthy survey
programmes, and assessments of long-term trends normally have to rely on existing data.
❑ Compliance monitoring – which aims to check that specific conditions and standards are met, e.g. in relation to
emissions of pollutants.
❑ Impact and mitigation monitoring – which aims to compare predicted and actual (residual) impacts, and hence to
determine the effectiveness of mitigation measures.
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EIA process: Monitoring
• Unless otherwise specified, ‘monitoring’ in EIA normally refers to impact and mitigation monitoring, which is
also sometimes called auditing.
• Monitoring is essential to learn from both successes and failures.
• For example:
❑It is the only mechanism for comparing predicted and actual impacts, and hence of checking whether
mitigation measures have been put in place, testing their effectiveness, and evaluating the efficiency of the
project management programme;
❑If mitigation measures are amenable to modification, it should still be possible to reduce residual impacts
identified during monitoring (feedback loop in Fig. 1.1);
❑It can provide information about responses of particular receptors to impacts;
❑It is the only means of EIA/EIS evaluation and of identifying mistakes that may be rectified in future EIAs. For
example, it will provide information that can be used to assess the adequacy of survey and predictive
methods, and how they may be improved. Thus, a principal aim of monitoring should be to contribute to a
cumulative database that can facilitate the improvement of future EIAs (Clark 1996).
Clark BD 1996. Monitoring and auditing in environmental assessment – improving the process.London: IAE & EARA Joint Annual Conference.
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REFLECTION
ACTIVITIES: 15 minutes
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Invited expert from the industry
Ekurhuleni Water Care Company (ERWAT)
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