Impact Assessment System Research Articles

国産エネルギー資源としてのメタンハイドレート

Depending on imports for 98.6% for oil and natural gas requirements, it has been a long-cherished dream for Japan to have domestic hydrocarbon energy resources. Methane hydrate, an ice-like white solid composed of water and methane gas, is believed to be widely distributed in the sea area off Japan. Therefore, Japan's Methane Hydrate R & D Program was established by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in FY2001. The organization established to execute this program is the Research Consortium for Methane Hydrate Resources in Japan (MH21). This program is divided into three phases, extending over 18 years. Phase 1 ended in FY2008. The main results of Phase 1 are as follows: (1) World's first successful continuous production of methane gas from methane hydrate-bearing layers in onshore production tests, (2) For the first time in the world, methane hydrate concentrated zones, which have development potential, were identified in the eastern Nankai Trough area, (3) Experimental in-situ testing methods of artificial and natural core samples of methane hydrate-bearing sediments were established, (4) Probabilistic resource assessment method based on well and seismic data was established, and the amount of methane gas trapped in the eastern Nankai Trough area was estimated, (5) Japan's own simulator dedicated to evaluating the production behavior of methane gas from methane hydrate-bearing layers was developed. Besides the above-mentioned achievements, fundamental studies were conducted on the Environmental Impact Assessment and Methane Hydrate System. The following technological issues have been identified by a sensitivity analysis of the Economic Evaluation: (1) increasing gas production rate (2) improving recovery factor, (3) reducing rate of sand-induced problems, and (4) reducing cost of subsea system. Phase 2 began in April 2009 to resolve these issues. The most important issue in Phase 2 is to conduct two offshore production tests in the sea off Japan. This paper introduces detailed results of Phase 1 and issues to be tackled during and after Phase 2.

Evaluation of Traffic Impacts of Residential Condominiums in the Context of the Community and the Philippines' Environmental Impact Assessment System

Evaluation of Traffic Impacts of Residential Condominiums in the Context of the Community and the Philippines' Environmental Impact Assessment System

Developing environmental impact statement (EIS) guidelines for the management of environmental quality at major projects in Kuwait

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to set guidelines for the development and review of environmental impact statements (EIS) for major development projects proposed in the third review of the Kuwait Master Plan (KMP3). Best practices for environmental quality management to alleviate the impact of these projects on the environment are discussed.Design/methodology/approachThe paper selects six major projects proposed for the period (2005‐2030) in KMP3. These projects include construction of new towns, power plants, highways, hospitals, waterfront projects and sanitary engineering projects. The current environmental impact assessment (EIA) system in Kuwait is reviewed and a comprehensive proposal to develop or review EISs for each of the six projects is recommended.FindingsThe projects selected are known to have adverse environmental impacts. The proposed EIS system will help developers prepare and submit a comprehensive EIS to obtain an environmental permit from the Environment Public Authority in Kuwait.Practical implicationsThe proposed guidelines could be modified and applied to EISs for similar projects in other Gulf countries and other regions in the world that have similar climate conditions and geographies.Originality/valueIt is hoped that the proposed EIS guidelines will qualify as best practices for environmental quality management of comparable projects. The guidelines should reduce the time involved for preparing EISs and promote greater content accuracy in addition to promoting a “cleaner production” approach for these projects.

Evaluation of environmental impact assessment system in Pakistan

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) was first introduced in Pakistan based on the Environmental Protection Ordinance 1983. The EIA process was further strengthened under the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997, which became operational under EIA Regulations 2000. Despite a sound legal basis and comprehensive guidelines, evidence suggests that EIA has not yet evolved satisfactorily in Pakistan. An evaluation of the EIA system against systematic evaluation criteria, based on interviews with EIA approval authorities, consulting firms and experts, reveals various shortcomings of the EIA system. These mainly include; inadequate capacity of EIA approval authorities, deficiencies in screening and scoping, poor EIA quality, inadequate public participation and weak monitoring. Overall, EIA is used presently as a project justification tool rather than as a project planning tool to contribute to achieving sustainable development. Whilst shortcomings are challenging, central government has recently shown a high degree of commitment to the environmental protection by making EIA compulsory for all the public sector projects likely to have adverse environmental impacts. The paper identifies opportunities for taking advantage of the current environment for strengthening the EIA process.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN THE CHINESE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT (EIA) SYSTEM

This article was initiated by findings that public participation in the Chinese Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) system has not been effectively carried out. The article first introduces the research rationale and theoretical basis. It then reviews and analyses public participation in the Chinese EIA system, including its history, legal and institutional requirements and problems. Thirdly it puts forward suggestions for promoting public participation in the Chinese EIA system taking into account Chinese legal requirements and international experience, including strengthening current legal requirements, adapting institutional arrangements, establishing guidelines and carrying out education programmes and training for public participation in EIA.

What is necessary to ensure natural justice in environmental impact assessment decision-making?

The concept of natural justice comprises certain legal principles that, taken together, constitute procedural fairness in administrative decision-making. It is closely aligned to the notion of public participation, a key element of most environmental impact assessment (EIA) throughout the world. But is natural justice the same as public participation, and if not, what are the differences between them? We review a number of international EIA procedures and legal cases, and find that the concept of natural justice appears to be a ‘grey area’ of EIA which is not explicitly addressed in many jurisdictions. More advanced systems of impact assessment generally provide for a high level of public participation, thereby facilitating both transparency and accountability; however, this is not the same as natural justice. We conclude that while institutional arrangements for EIA may have a bearing on the nature and level of public participation that is appropriate, natural justice should never be compromised, and EIA regimes should specifically address the need for natural justice when new information arises which may be significant in the decision-making process.

Belgian environmental impact assessment systems: Legal frameworks and beyond

As a result of a number of constitutional reforms in recent decades Belgium is now a federal state. The societal evolution and the historical devolution of competencies have resulted in a multi-actor policy approach at different policy levels: municipal, provincial, regional and national (federal). Competencies regarding particular policy fields like the environment are often not attributed to one policy level. The application of policy instruments in such a framework leads to complex processes and regulatory frameworks for decision-making within Belgium. The transposition of the consecutive EU Directives has resulted in a growing environmental impact assessment practice. (E)IA approaches and requirements are found in horizontal as well as in specific legislation. The application of the impact assessment frameworks has raised questions about the coherence of both proponents and authorities have to deal with these institutional features. Institutions provide not only for frameworks; they are also stakeholders in decision-making and have an interest in impact assessment. Most EIA legislation is, however, to be found at the regional level, except for the projects in the Belgian marine environment and nuclear installations which have remained a federal issue. Yet, for certain projects and even plans – e.g. on the North Sea coastline in Flanders, the only coastal region in Belgium – the decision-making process requires the application of both the federal and regional legislations. Later on the transposition of the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive of 2001 revealed a more profound “impact” on decision-making processes. The final adoption of federal and regional SEA legislation happened in the course of 2006-2008. This article briefly outlines EIA and SEA (and emerging IA) regulations at the Belgian federal and regional policy levels. Furthermore, some particular issues regarding the involvement of stakeholders and consultants as an element of impact assessment quality requirements are explored.

AN ALTERNATING-SEQUENCE CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR EIA-EMS INTEGRATION

The integration of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environmental Management Systems (EMS) has been approached several times in recent years. This article reviews existing conceptual frameworks and specific issues regarding the EIA-EMS integration, and recommends a new conceptual framework which is based on an alternating sequence of EMS and EIA. It also proposes adaptations in key documents of both processes. The recommendations are adaptable to the varied practice of EIA across the globe, and conform to the ISO14001-compliant EMS protocol.

Game theoretic analysis of environmental impact assessment system in China

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) system has been established in China since 1973. In present EIA cases, there are four participants in general: governments, enterprises, EIA organizations and the public. The public has held responsible for both social costs and social duties. The public supervises social costs produced by enterprises discharging pollutant in EIA. However public participation is mostly deputized by governments, which severely weaken the independence of the public as one participant in EIA. In this paper, EIA refers to the different attitudes of the participants whose optional strategies may be described by a proper game model. According to disfigurements in EIA, three sides (governments, enterprises, and EIA organizations) dynamic iterative game theory, dynamic game theory of incomplete information, and perfect Bayesian equilibrium theory to analyze the reciprocity relation among governments, EIA organizations and enterprises. The results show that in a short period, economic benefit is preponderant over social benefit. Governments and enterprises both do not want to take EIA to reveal social costs. EIA organizations’ income comes from enterprises and the collusions are built between them to vindicate economic benefit. In a long run, social benefit loss caused by environmental pollution must be recuperated sooner or later and environmental deterioration will influence the achievements of economic benefit, so both governments and enterprises are certain to pursue high social benefit and willing to take EIA, helpful to increase private benefit. EIA organizations will make fair assessment when their economic benefit are ensured. At present, the public as silent victims can not take actual part in EIA. The EIA system must be improved to break the present equilibrium of three sides, bringing the public to the equilibrium to exert public supervision.

Connecting EIA to environmental management systems: lessons from industrial estate developments in England

AbstractThis paper concerns the relationship between environmental assessment and environmental management systems in the context of recent industrial estate developments. Drawing on environmental statements and interviews with developers, an examination was carried out of the level of good practice in estate design and operation, and the way in which this was influenced by environmental impact assessment and environmental management systems. The study concludes that the environmental impact assessment system worked well within the context of land use planning, but that it failed to facilitate the planning of effective environmental management in practice, with the consequence that the projects examined failed to meet many of the good practice criteria against which they were tested. Finally, several recommendations are made to strengthen continuity between the two. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

An Evaluation of the Environmental Impact Assessment System in Turkey: Practitioners View

An Evaluation of the Environmental Impact Assessment System in Turkey: Practitioners View

An evaluation of environmental impact assessment in Eritrea

This paper reviews the environmental impact assessment (EIA) system in Eritrea against a set of evaluation criteria. It analyses the institutional aspects of EIA, the process of EIA, together with other features of the system. The review indicates that the current EIA system in Eritrea meets eleven of the 18 evaluation criteria, partially meets three and fails to meet four. The major weaknesses relate to; the lack of legal provision for EIA; inadequacy of resources; failure to make the EIA findings a key aspect of decision-making; and the lack of formal provision for Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). To strengthen the current EIA system in the country, therefore, investment in training and continuing professional development in EIA for different stakeholders is needed. The most urgent priority is the establishment of a sound legal basis for EIA.

What is Necessary to Ensure Natural Justice for Community Participants in Sustainability Decision-Making?: Natural Justice in Sustainability Decision-Making

International practices for environmental and sustainability decision-making with respect to expectations to uphold natural justice or procedural fairness through full engagement of public stakeholders concerning all information used to guide decisions are reviewed. Best practice principles that emerge from a literature review and survey of international practitioners from the impact assessment field are evaluated. The concept of natural justice relates to a duty to involve those affected by new development proposals to be involved in approval decision-making through meaningful consultation and participation. This includes fully explaining the reasons for a decision that has been made and reasonable provisions for appealing against decisions taken. Typically, natural justice is not something that is prescribed in law but emerges from practice and customs. The more advanced systems of impact assessment generally provide for a high level of transparency, accountability and public participation in decision-making. In systems where the advice to the decision-maker is available for public comment, there is a greater expectation for full disclosure of information relevant to decision-making. The nature of the legal direction provided for the basis of decision-making has direct bearing on the level of public involvement in decision-making. Decision-making by elected ministers is generally less transparent than that at the level of government agencies, and expectations of practitioners concerning natural justice varies accordingly. Balance has to be struck between efficiency of process and provision of endless opportunity for public participation in decision-making - provision of appeal rights along with full disclosure of the reasons behind a decision are important here. Ultimately some judgement is required by decision-makers to decide when and how much information should be disclosed to stakeholders on a case by case basis, realising however, that a fair process is ultimately likely to lead to the most sustainable outcome and in the most efficient way.

El sistema español de evaluación de impacto ambiental: nuestra posición en el mundo

This paper presents the results of an evaluation of certain aspects of the performance of the Spanish Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) system. For this purpose, parallels between the EIA system in Spain and in other countries have been established. The study is based on a comparative review of the EIA systems currently in force in 55 countries. A set of performance indicators was developed and applied to the assessment of these EIA systems. The results reveal that the Spanish EIA system is in a peculiar situation in the international arena, which is explained by the combination of major shortcomings and some advantages in EIA practice. Spain is one of the World’s largest “producers” of EIAs, and one of the industrialized countries that least legislative ammendments has introduced to remedy deficiencies in EIA practice. Many of these deficiencies still remain.

Comparison of China’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Law with the European Union (EU) EIA Directive

In this paper, we first review the development of China's Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) system in the past 30 years. Then we compare the framework and operational procedures of China's new EIA law with those of the EU EIA Directive. We also compare public participation, as well as sanctions and control in the two EIA systems. In addition, we identify where the processes in both EIA systems are similar or different from one another. By comparison, we noted that there are at least three obvious weaknesses in China's EIA system: (1) the application of new models for EIA legislation; (2) the improvement of EIA guidance and education; and (3) the enhancement of public participation in EIA process. Our study indicates that these three major shortcomings should be overcome and improved in China's EIA system, when compared with the EU EIA system.

The quality of Portuguese Environmental Impact Studies: The case of small hydropower projects

In most Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) systems environmental authorities can stop an EIA process by refusing the respective EIA Report, on the grounds of technical or methodological insufficiencies identified in the review procedure. However, often times, it cannot be taken for granted that, once an EIA Report is formally accepted, as part of an EIA process, its quality standard is, consistently, of a satisfactory level. This paper summarises the results of a one-year research project aimed at assessing the quality of EIA studies carried out for small hydropower plants in Portugal. An extensive survey was carried out to analyse all EIA Reports that were the basis of successful EIA processes involving this kind of small scale projects, under the old and the new national EIA legislation, that is, over the last two decades. Often times unnoticeable to the general public and the media, located in isolated areas upstream secondary rivers, these projects are likely to generate some significant environmental impacts, in particular on the aesthetics value and character of local landscapes and on pristine ecological habitats. And yet, they are usually regarded as environmental friendly projects designed to produce emission free energy. The design of the evaluation criteria benefited from the literature review on similar research projects carried out in other EU countries. The evaluation exercise revealed a number of technical and methodological weaknesses in a significant percentage of cases. A set of simple and clear cut recommendations is proposed twofold: to improve the current standard of EIA practice and to strengthen the role of the so called EIA Commissions, at the crucial review stage of the EIA process.

CONCEPTUAL AND APPLIED PROBLEMS WITH THE UK COMPETITION FILTER

Under the UK system of regulatory impact assessment, proposed legislation is subject to a negative clearance test to identify measures that risk significant harm to competition. Known as the “competition filter,” the test attempts to exempt low-risk measures from detailed scrutiny, that is, a competition assessment. This article describes how the competition filter suffers from a number of significant conceptual problems. In addition, this article demonstrates that the competition filter would allow important classes of potentially damaging regulations that have previously attracted criticism from the Office of Fair Trading. Finally, some improvements to the competition filter are proposed.

The Environmental Dimension of Impact Assessment: Documentation of a Workshop Organised Together with the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, 17-18 June 2004, Berlin

In June 2002, the European Commission introduced an internal administrative procedure with the aim to assess potential economic, social and environmental effects of all its major initiatives during the policy formulation process. This so-called integrated impact assessment system is intended to improve the quality and coherence of regulation, but also to help implement the European Sustainable Development Strategy. Not surprisingly the initiative was met with great expectation by stakeholders in Brussels and EU-Member States since it affects an annual work program of several hundreds policy initiatives. Environmental stakeholders raised hopes that the introduction of this procedure would stimulate new efforts to strengthen environmental policy integration. Progress in 2003, the first year of operation, turned out to be rather modest, however: the overall quality of impact assessments was uneven, sometimes poor. At the same time, the integrated approach was called into question by several business stakeholders who claimed that a stronger concentration on economic and competitiveness aspects was needed to strengthen the economic performance. On June 17-18, 2004, the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) and the Environmental Policy Research Centre at the Freie Universitat Berlin (FFU), held a workshop to discuss possible policy implications of these developments and to exchange views on options for safeguarding the balanced approach of Impact Assessment. The workshop took place in Berlin and comprised participants from environmental ministries and agencies of EU member states. After fruitful discussions, some recommendations regarding procedural aspects and substantial requirements were adopted.

Decision-oriented environmental assessment: An empirical study of its theory and methods

The potential advantages of a decision-oriented theory of environmental assessment have long been recognised, but it is only in recent years that this topic has received concerted attention. This research advanced contemporary debate on environmental assessment through an empirically-informed evaluation of strategic theoretical and methodological issues associated with the practical application of decision-oriented theory. This was undertaken by critically analysing the decision-oriented Environmental Impact Assessment system of the German Development Cooperation (a bilateral development assistance agency) using a modified version of a recent conceptual and methodological development, Analytical Strategic Environmental Assessment. The results indicate that some aspects of decision-oriented theory offer considerable potential for environmental assessment process management, and should be employed routinely. Yet uncertainty remains about whether certain core concepts, notably the detailed a priori description of decision processes, can be achieved in practice. The analysis also indicates that there is considerably more common ground in many contemporary debates about environmental assessment than the literature, which has tended towards polarisation suggests. The significance of this research is that it recognises and highlights the contribution of decision-oriented theory to refocusing attention on the substantive intent of this globally significant policy tool.

Value chain programmes to integrate competitiveness, economic growth and poverty reduction

Identifying particular value chains that have the potential to compete globally should boost output and incomes. The challenge is to achieve this in value chains incorporating large numbers of small firms and microenterprises, and who are also in a position to benefit. This paper offers a step-by-step practical guide to intervention design for achieving competitiveness that benefits the poor. First industries are selected with potential for competitiveness, then a value chain analysis is carried out. A strategy is developed to improve competitiveness and achieve an equitable distribution of benefits, and an action plan is devised to achieve this strategy. Finally a system of performance monitoring and impact assessment is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions.