Introduction to environmental Impact Assessment

How do we measure variation in VEC?

*Identification of indicators. Good indicators are crucial to good measurement; * Establishing VEC objectives (what is acceptable vs what is not). Either by using benchmarks, points of reference, or threshold, limit to change accepted;

Why is public participation important in EIA?

- because it is required by the law - define the problem more efficiently - access a wider range of knowledge (such as TEK, traditional environment knowledge - identify socially acceptable solutions - ensure a more balanced decision-making - minimize conflict and costly delays - facilitate implementation - reduce possibility of legal challenge - promote social learning

Why are follow ups important?

- compliance- a way to make sure that the mitigation proposals are actually enforced (since they are non-binding) -process: make sure that the anticipated outcomes are valid and that there are not unanticipated outcomes -understanding: gain knowledge for next EIA.

Are there some disadventages to this involvement?

- public participation not always meaningful - might led to the overepresentation of groups with high influence but little stakes (like the media...) - slow down and complicate the job

What are the limitations of EIA?

-Can be ineffective if not carried well: late in the process, not applied to some projects... -Minimization vs promotion of sustainability: EIA focusses on making the impact of a project less severe rather than ecouraging positive steps towars greater sustainability. But there are other instruments for that such as SEA (strategic environmental assessment) designed to promote the sustainability of projects, decision making more broadly. -Lack of public participation -lack of follow ups

What changes did the Canadian Environmental assessment act, 2012 made to EIA in Canada?

-Reduction in the number of federal agencies involved in the EIA process, now only three -Elimination of EIA for small projects -Development of equivalencies, the federal agencies can delegation the EIA process to other agents -Time limits of one year -restriction of the definition of an environmental effect -focus on interested parties in public participation

What are common tools to predict impacts in EIA?

1) Analogue approaches: examination of similar projects 2) Judgment 3) System modelling

What are the different way to manage negative environmental impacts?

1) Avoidance: find ways to avoid effects. ex: finding other routes for highway construction that avoid important habitat or cultural locations. 2) Mitigation: find ways to minimize adverse impacts. ex: establish buffer zones to avoid soil erosion in a project of forest harvesting. 3) Remediation: restoring environmental quality after the project is done. ex: restoring landscape after forest harvesting 4) Compensation: nothing else is possible. ex: mining project destoys lake. Creation of another lake.

What are common tools to identify and classify info in EIA?

1) Checklists- comprehensive lists of environmetal effects. One common type is the programmed-text checklist that is a form of questionnaire. ex: "is there a risk of impact on drinking water?" Good: efficient and easy to use. Bad: Only works with projects for which we know which impact arise. Can miss some impacts. Too general. Does not evaluate impacts quantatively or qualitatively. Subjective. Does not provide any conceptual understanding of impacts (cause effect) 2) Matrices: Two dimentional checklists with on one axis project activity and on the other environmental impact. Two kinds: A) Magnitude matrices- goes beyong simple impact identification by providing information on their magnitude, importance, time frame. Two examples: I) Leopold matrix, includes magnitude of the impact on a scale of -10 to +10. Bad: only identifies direct impacts, does not identify duration and timing, generates a large amount of not always useful information, no attention to the relative importance of the elements. II) Weighted magnitude matrices- assigns some importance to each of the environmental components. The relative importance of the component is a reflection of a mix of ecological, social values, sensitivity change... bad: subjective B) Interaction matrices They go beyond direct component interaction. I) Component interaction matrices identify first order, second and third interactions between elements to better understand indirect effects. II) Weighted impact interaction matrices Impacts are multiplied by the relative importance of the elements. 3) Trends and associations: netwiork diagrams can be used to modelize the links and interactions between various factors 4) Spacial analysis: GIS are computer based methods of recording, amalizing and combining information such as roads, streams, forests...

What are the challenges in making impact precision?

1) Finding a right balance between precision and accuracy 2) Findind a degree of confidence of the results. General practice is the underestimate uncertainty for political purposes 3) Hard to predict non quantifiable variable such as the impact of fly in fly out mining operations

How do we determine impact characteristics?

1) adverse effects (good or bad?) 2) magnitude (how big within quality standard?) 3) probablity (how likely?) 4) timing, duration, frequency 5) spacial extent 6) mitigable (can be fixed?) 7) legal threshold 8) cumulative effects

What are the different way to manage positive environmental impacts?

1) creation of benefits such as economic growth or environmental improvement. ex: hydroelectric contruction project, stimulation of the local economy 2) enhancing benefits: ensuring that the possible benefits are maximised. ex: encouraging promoters to buy local.

What is the purpose of EIA scoping?

1) ensure that key issues are identified and given an appropriate degree of attention 2) reduce unnecessary data 3) EIA is designed to maximize information quality to decision making 4) ensures that the important stakeholders will enter EIA 5) identifying public and scientific concerns and values

What are the 9 steps in EIA?

1-Project description 2-Screening 3-Scoping and baseline assessment 4-Impact assessment 5-Impact management 6-Significance determination 7-Submission and reviews to EIS 8-Recomendations and decision 9-Follow ups

What are the provisions for public participation in Canada?

5 provisions: 1) Notice the public that an EIA is going to take place 2) Enable access to information on the EIA 3) Offer opportunity to make public comments (written) 4) "Interested parties" can take part in panel discussions 5) Provision of funding for the directly affected parties to conduct research or get involved The federal government has a legal "duty to consult" the aboriginals.

What is EIA?

A process used to predict the environmental consequences of a plan, policy, program or project prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. There are different ways to think about EIA as a: 1) environmental protection tool 2) methodology 3) regulatory requirement 4) process to aid decision making

What is the relationship between accuracy and precision in impact prediction?

Accuracy: the closeness of a predicted value to its true value. Precision: the level of exactness assocated with an impact prediction. ---One can be accurate without a high level of precision by making general statements (ex: slight increase in mercury concentration) ----As the level of precision required increases, the accuracy decreases: (ex: the concentration of mercury will increase of 7% over the 10 next days) ---The fact than an impact prediction is accurate does not mean that it more usefull if its level of precision is too low.

What are the non environmental benefits of EIA?

EIA can improve the design of the project and reduce its cost for the proponent by identifying early in the process potentially unforseen impacts. It can also avoid legal altercations by ensuring the early compliance of proponents with environmental standards. Can increase the public acceptance of the project.

What is the difference between environmental "change" and "effect"?

Environmental change is the difference in the condition of a particular element over a period of time. Environmental effect is the difference in the condition of a particular element under project-induced change versus what that condition might be in the absence of the project.

How to classify the predicted environemental change?

I) Look at the nature of the effect 1-incremental changes: minimal shifts 2-additive changes: the addition of various impacts that put together might have a greater impact 3-Synergic: the impact of a combination of factors is greater than their addition 4-antagonistic effects: put together, to factors have an impact that is less than their addition II) Look at their temporal and spacial characteristics temporal: the duration , continuity, immediacy of the impact / spacial: the geographical scope of the impact III) Magnitude and discretion: the magnitude is the size of degree of an effect (ex: concentration of a polluant). discretion is the increase of decrease in the magnitude of the effect after the project in comparison to the baseline. IV) Reversability: is it possible to approximate the baseline conditions after the end of the project? V) Likelihood of impact: how sure are we that it is going to happen?

What is the difference between a "method" and a "technique"?

In EIA, a method attemps to characterise, classify impacts but not to predict them. On the contrary, a technique's goal is to predict impacts.

What is the "precautionary principle"?

In the context of screening, the authorities have limited scientific information on the project's impact. The PP states that this lack of information should not be an excuse to approve the activity and avoid an EIA.

What is "scoping"?

It is about determining the important issues and parameters that should be addressed in an EIA. It establishes the temporal and spacial boundaries of the assessment and focusses its attention on specific issues.

What are tools in EIA and what is their importance ?

No tools are specifically designed for EIA. But choice of tools important to the quality of information produced for decision making. How to choose tools? Depends on the nature of the problem, the socio-economic context, the data available, the qualifications of the researcher, the time and resources...

What changes did the Canadian Evironment Assessment act of 2012 make to public participation?

Provided further support for the participation of aboriginal groups. But! Also restricted public participation in hearing processess to the "interested parties".

What is impact significance?

The determination of whether a project is likely to cause adverse environment effect that are judged to be important. At two stages: 1) predicted project effects 2) predicted effects following EIA (residual effects) Impact significance= Impact characteristic X Impact importance

What is "screening?"

The first stage of the EIA process that consists of determining whether the project requires an assessment, and if so, to what extent.

What is impact prediction?

The identitfication of potential changes in the environment. It requires a knowledge of the baseline and the development of hypothesis concerning its modification. On the biophysical environment it includes prediction on: biological, chemical, physical and ecological change. On the human environment it includes- demographic, cultural, economic, health, social and institutional change.

How do we determine impact importance?

The importance or value if the affected component is usually based on societal, ecological, economic, political, public... concerns. 1) ecological value: is the specie vulnerable and relaceable? 2) societal value: affect on valued standards such as health care, recreational value, demographic...

What is impact management?

The phase that follows the identification of environmental effects. Translates those findings into recommendations to enhance positive outcomes.

What are the general goals of EIA?

The primary goal of EIA is to facilitate the consideration of environment in planning and decision making and ultimately to make it possible to reach decisions that are more environmentally sustainable. Two levels of objectives: --Short term: 1) ensuring that environmental factors are addressed in decision making 2) improving design of projects 3) anticipating, managing and minimizing adverse effects 4) ensuring proponents complicance with laws 5) providing mean for public participation 6) ensuring that potential impact is mediatised ---Long term: protection of the ecosystem, facilitation of learning, increase environmental awareness... z But different people might give it different goals: -proponents: mean to improve project design and get gov approval. -politicians: facilitate project approval by the public -public: about deliberative democracy

What are valued ecosystem components?

They are aspects of the environment that people value and that are considered important from scientists and public perspectives, thus warranting detailed consideration in the EIA. How do we decide? A mix of attention to rarity, economic, medical importance, spiritual, professional judgement.

What are follow up programs?

They are programs that occur after the project's approval and whose goal is to determine whether the program is continuing to have environmental impact. Two goals: 1) verify that the EIA was correct 2) determine the effectiveness of the mitiagating measures. Composed of 3 elements: 1) monitoring: collection of data and observation 2) auditing: the comparison of data and observation against a set standard. 3) ex-post evaluation: value judgment and adjustments

How do we decide if an EIA is required?

Three approaches: 1) Case by case screening: the evaluation of a specific project in comparison with a set of checklists, regulations or general guidelines. ex: in Saskatchewan uses it. Good sides: it is dynamic and allows for a great level of attention to regional specificities. Bad sides: time consuming, inconsistent and very contestable. 2) List based screening: a list of projects for which an EIA is required based on the potential of that projectto generate significant effects or on regulatory framework. ex: in california. Bad side: no attention to context (cumulative impact...) 3) Threshold: placing projects in categories and setting threshold for each type (size, population affected). bad side: what if the project is just under? can be random, no attention to context Solution: hybrid!

How do we determine Impact Significance?

Three methods: 1) Technical approach- the adoption of standardized methods that are usually quantitative. ex: the fixed point scoring assigns fixed numbers of values to environmental components/ rating / paired comparisons 2) Collaborative approach- decision of what is valued is made with all of the parties affected by the project. 3) Reasoned argument- building reasoned argument similar to courts judgement by using data. 4) Composite approach : combine them all!

What are the screening requirements in Canada?

Under the CAA of 2012: 1) If a project is a designated project (projects listed in the Regulations Designating Physical Activities ) 2) or if certain authorities have a decision making responsability in relation to a project on federal land or outside canada. (+ the project is likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects)

What is public participation in EIA?

definition: the involvement of individuals and groups that are positively and negatively affected by a project that is subject to a decision-making process. who is the public? Different levels of influence and stakes. Influence: the "active public" (organised interest groups) vs the "inactive public" (citizen lambda). Stakes: directly affect vs little stakes. level of participation: Ranges from providing information to the public (most common practice) to direct control.