Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are designed to evaluate all reasonably foreseeable environmental consequences of human activities. Appropriate governmental scientists traditionally produced EIAs for managemen...Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are designed to evaluate all reasonably foreseeable environmental consequences of human activities. Appropriate governmental scientists traditionally produced EIAs for management agencies in many countries. However, many EIAs are now contracted out, often to the lowest bidder without due consideration of expertise. Others suffer from limited agency resources. Consequently, many EIAs have become insufficiently researched documents that draw heavily from previous EIAs while being rushed to completion to meet legislative deadlines or avoid delaying projects. Habitual treatment of topics often ignores recent scientific literature, perpetuating previous misconceptions and analytical flaws. Common problems in EIAs discussing wildlife include: a focus on lethal takes, with little consideration of non-lethal impacts or habitat degradation;a general dismissal of the possibility that non-significant (to the resource) impacts can, when combined, become significant;and the assumption that behavioral habituation in animals represents an end of impact. Incentive to break the cycle is somewhat lacking in this now often commercially competitive environment, where contracts are increasingly awarded by industry, generating potential conflict of interest. We believe investment in thorough, impartially written, scientifically-based and up-to-date EIAs is important for appropriately representing and managing ecosystems and their resources and avoiding potentially expensive litigation.展开更多
The study tries to set up a system to extract strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in exploitation of regional development based on the present situation of environmental assessment in China. First, the article su...The study tries to set up a system to extract strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in exploitation of regional development based on the present situation of environmental assessment in China. First, the article summarizes the emphasis and deficiency of international academic community’s SEA research in the past 10 years. Based on this, the article puts forward the concept and evaluation principles of regional strategic environmental assessment (RSEA). Then the article expounds the necessity of carrying out RSEA. After that, the article discusses in detail the process of RSEA, which includes defining evaluation scope, describing regional background, combing strategic behavior, designing development scenarios, predicting the pressure on environment, assessing environmental impact, screening alternatives and proposing regulation and control schemes.展开更多
Development is an ever growing process and its impact is often detrimental to environment which in turn may lead to adverse consequences for human life. Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) is an anticipatory and parti...Development is an ever growing process and its impact is often detrimental to environment which in turn may lead to adverse consequences for human life. Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) is an anticipatory and participatory environment management tool which helps in the decision-making process for different upcoming development projects by analyzing the environmental consequences of the action. The large scale projects like setting up of Special Investment Regions (SIR), Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and Industrial Estates (IE) have cumulative impacts on the environmental condition of the region. This paper intends to describe different practices of impact assessment and seeks to direct this debate towards the potential benefits of applying Regional EIA over the project specific EIA to capture the cumulative impact of large development projects like SIRs and IE on the environmental condition of the region and underline the challenges often faced during the study. Regional EIA is a new concept in India and the process of development of an SIR is different from the other industrial projects such as SEZ or IE. Unlike SEZ which comprises of only industrial activity, SIR also includes residential commercial and other amenities over an area of more than 100 square kilometers. Further, the implementation of Regional EIA in Indian context is also constrained by problem in baseline data collection and lack of exhaustive ecological and socioeconomic indicators for impact assessment and restricted use of state of art technologies such as Geographical Information System due to many factors such as cost involved and lack of awareness among consultants. The whole process of Regional EIA should be made rapid and more participatory.展开更多
文摘Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are designed to evaluate all reasonably foreseeable environmental consequences of human activities. Appropriate governmental scientists traditionally produced EIAs for management agencies in many countries. However, many EIAs are now contracted out, often to the lowest bidder without due consideration of expertise. Others suffer from limited agency resources. Consequently, many EIAs have become insufficiently researched documents that draw heavily from previous EIAs while being rushed to completion to meet legislative deadlines or avoid delaying projects. Habitual treatment of topics often ignores recent scientific literature, perpetuating previous misconceptions and analytical flaws. Common problems in EIAs discussing wildlife include: a focus on lethal takes, with little consideration of non-lethal impacts or habitat degradation;a general dismissal of the possibility that non-significant (to the resource) impacts can, when combined, become significant;and the assumption that behavioral habituation in animals represents an end of impact. Incentive to break the cycle is somewhat lacking in this now often commercially competitive environment, where contracts are increasingly awarded by industry, generating potential conflict of interest. We believe investment in thorough, impartially written, scientifically-based and up-to-date EIAs is important for appropriately representing and managing ecosystems and their resources and avoiding potentially expensive litigation.
基金founded by the Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 40635026)
文摘The study tries to set up a system to extract strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in exploitation of regional development based on the present situation of environmental assessment in China. First, the article summarizes the emphasis and deficiency of international academic community’s SEA research in the past 10 years. Based on this, the article puts forward the concept and evaluation principles of regional strategic environmental assessment (RSEA). Then the article expounds the necessity of carrying out RSEA. After that, the article discusses in detail the process of RSEA, which includes defining evaluation scope, describing regional background, combing strategic behavior, designing development scenarios, predicting the pressure on environment, assessing environmental impact, screening alternatives and proposing regulation and control schemes.
文摘Development is an ever growing process and its impact is often detrimental to environment which in turn may lead to adverse consequences for human life. Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) is an anticipatory and participatory environment management tool which helps in the decision-making process for different upcoming development projects by analyzing the environmental consequences of the action. The large scale projects like setting up of Special Investment Regions (SIR), Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and Industrial Estates (IE) have cumulative impacts on the environmental condition of the region. This paper intends to describe different practices of impact assessment and seeks to direct this debate towards the potential benefits of applying Regional EIA over the project specific EIA to capture the cumulative impact of large development projects like SIRs and IE on the environmental condition of the region and underline the challenges often faced during the study. Regional EIA is a new concept in India and the process of development of an SIR is different from the other industrial projects such as SEZ or IE. Unlike SEZ which comprises of only industrial activity, SIR also includes residential commercial and other amenities over an area of more than 100 square kilometers. Further, the implementation of Regional EIA in Indian context is also constrained by problem in baseline data collection and lack of exhaustive ecological and socioeconomic indicators for impact assessment and restricted use of state of art technologies such as Geographical Information System due to many factors such as cost involved and lack of awareness among consultants. The whole process of Regional EIA should be made rapid and more participatory.
