CHAPTER 2

THE
EIA
PROCESS
06/18/24 1
THE EIA PROCESS
 Environmental impact assessment: a
process
 It is a process of examining the environmental
consequences of development action in progress
 The process involves a number of steps outlined in
slides to come.
 although the steps are outlined in linear fashion, EIA
should be a cyclical activity, with feedback and
interaction between the various steps.

06/18/24 2
The EIA process
Consideration of alternatives

Action design

Determining whether an EIA

Is necessary (Screening)

Deciding on the coverage of

EIA (Scoping)

06/18/24 3
 The EIA process (contd…)
Preparation of the EIA Report
Description of action
and Environment
Consultation
And Mitigation
Impact Prediction
Participation

Impact Significance

Reviewing the EIA report

Decision Making

06/18/24 Monitoring Action Impacts 4

 THE EIA
PROCESS

06/18/24 5
THE EIA PROCESS
 Project screening
 narrows the application Of EIA to those projects that
may have significant environmental impacts.
 Scoping:
 seeks to identify at an early stage, from all of a
project's possible impacts, those that are the key,
significant ones.
 Prediction and Mitigation:
 Consideration of alternatives: alternatives including:
project locations, scales, processes, layouts, operating
conditions, and the "no action" option
 Description of the project/development action:
including stages of development, location and
processes
06/18/24 6
THE EIA PROCESS
 Identification of key impacts: to make sure that all
potentially significant environmental impacts
(adverse and beneficial) are identified and taken
into account in the process
 The prediction of impacts: with the project and
without the project is compared to identify the
magnitude and other dimensions of the identified
changes.
 Evaluation and assessment of significance: seeks to
assess the relative significance of the predicted
impacts to allow a focus on key adverse impacts
 Mitigation: involves the introduction of measures to
avoid, reduce, remedy or compensate for any
significant adverse impacts. 7
06/18/24
THE EIA PROCESS
 Public consultation and participation: to ensure that
the public's views are adequately taken into
consideration in the decision-making process
 EIS presentation:
 is a vital step in the process. If done badly, much good
work in the EIA may be negated
 Review: involves a systematic appraisal of the quality of
the EIS, as a contribution to the decision-making process
 Management and Monitoring:
 Decision-making:
 Post-decision monitoring
 Auditing: It can involve comparing actual
outcomes with predicted outcomes, and can be
used to assess the quality of predictions and the
effectiveness of mitigation
06/18/24 8
THE EIA PROCESS
 Environmental impact statements: the
documentation:
 The environmental impact statement
provides documentation of the information
and estimates of impacts derived from the
various steps in the process
 Table below provides an example of the
content of an EIS for a project:
 Within each of the topic areas of the EIS
there would normally be discussion of
existing conditions, predicted impacts, scope
for mitigation and residual impacts
06/18/24 9
 THE EIA PROCESS
Table-
Table-An
AnEIS
EISfor
foraaproject
project- -example
exampleofofcontents.
contents.Non-technical
Non-technicalsummary
summary
Part
Part1:
1:Methods
Methodsand
andkey
keyissues
issues
1.1.Methods
Methodsstatement
statement
2.2.Summary
Summaryofofkey
keyissues;
issues;monitoring
monitoringprogramme
programmestatement
statement
Part
Part2:
2:Background
Backgroundto
tothe
theproposed
proposeddevelopment
development
1.1. Preliminary
Preliminarystudies:
studies:need,
need,planning,
planning,alternatives,
alternatives,site
siteselection
selection
2.2. Site description/baseline conditions
Site description/baseline conditions
3.3.Description
Descriptionofofproposed
proposeddevelopment
development
4.4.Construction
Construction activities andprogramme
activities and programme
Part
Part3:
3:Environmental
Environmentalimpact
impactassessment
assessment- -topic
topicareas
areas
1.1.Land
Landuse,
use,landscape
landscapeandandvisual
visualquality
quality
2.2.Geology, topography and soils
Geology, topography and soils
3.3.Hydrology
Hydrologyandandwater
waterquality
quality
4.4.Air quality and climate
Air quality and climate
5.5.Ecology:
Ecology:terrestrial
terrestrialand
andaquatic
aquatic
6.6.Noise
Noise
7.7.Transport
Transport
8.8.Socio-economic
Socio-economic
9.9.Interrelationships
Interrelationshipsbetween
betweeneffects
effects
06/18/24 10
THE EIA PROCESS
 The Process: IN A MORE DETAILED WAY
(SUPPORTED BY CASE STUDY)
 The EIA Team:
 There will be a large number of people involved
in EIA apart from the full-time team members
 It is essential that the EIA team and the team
carrying out the feasibility study work together
and not in isolation from each other
 Start-Up/Early Stage:
 The EIA process makes sure that environmental
issues are raised when a project or plan is first
discussed and that all concerns are addressed as a
project gains momentum through to
implementation
06/18/24 11
 THE EIA PROCESS
 Project screening - is an EIA needed?
World Bank Guidelines for
Screening

Projects where EIA is Required:

•Dams/Reservoir
Projects where Limited No EIA:
•Irrigation/drainage
EIA is required: •Education
•Pipelines
•Mini-hydro •Health
•River Basin Development
•Small scale irrigation •Institutional
•Urban water supply
•Water supply & sant. Deve’t
•and Sanitation…

06/18/24 12
IEE
THE EIA PROCESS
 Scoping: which impacts and issues to consider?
 is the process of identifying the key
environmental issues and is perhaps the
most important step in an EIA
 The scope of the EIA is the impacts and
issues that it addresses
those impacts thought to
be potentially significant
ti fies those thought to
id en
Initial be non-significant
scoping those where the position is unclear

06/18/24 13
THE EIA PROCESS
 It is an important step in EIA because it enables
the limited resources of the team preparing an EIA
to be allocated to best effect, and prevents
misunderstanding between the parties concerned
 Two things that makes scoping so essential in the
EIA process:
1. problems can be pinpointed early allowing mitigating
design changes to be made before expensive detailed
work is carried out
2. to ensure that detailed prediction work is only carried out
for important issues
 At this stage the option exists for canceling or
drastically revising the project should major
environmental problems be identified
06/18/24 14
THE EIA PROCESS
 Techniques to be used at this stage (to be dealt with in
Chap.-III)
 Baseline study
 Checklists
 Matrices
 network
 When do we consider alternatives?
 If a project is not screened out, and is believed to have
potentially significant impacts on the environment
 Some of the importance of considering alternative are:
 It encourages analysts to focus on differences between ad
hocs
 It can allow people who were not directly involved in the
decision-making process to evaluate various aspects of the
proposed project and how they were arrived at
06/18/24 15
THE EIA PROCESS
 It also provides a framework for the competent
authority's decision, rather than merely a
justification for a particular action
 What does “alternative” really signify?
 the "no action" option
 alternative locations

 alternative scales of the project

 alternative processes or equipment

 alternative site layouts

 alternative operating conditions

 alternative ways of dealing with environmental

impacts
06/18/24 16
THE EIA PROCESS
 Impact Prediction, Evaluation and Mitigation:
 The whole EIA exercise is about
 Prediction
THE HEARTS OF THE EIA
 Evaluation and
PROCESS
 Mitigation
PREDICTION

MITIGATION

EVALUATION

06/18/24 17
 THE EIA PROCESS
 What to predict?-dimensions of prediction
 One starting point is the legislative requirement
 The identified impacts at the screening phase
should be predicted in advance for their possible
impact scenario in the future.
 Example:
 Industrial air pollution identified impact
 Degree of increase in air pollution need to be
predicted progressively.
 Prediction Involves:

06/18/24
Prediction of magnitude of impacts (SIZE) 18
THE EIA PROCESS
 Prediction of the significance of the impacts (IMPORTANCE FOR
DECISION MAKING)
 Magnitude doesn't always equate the significance:
Example:
A large proportionate increase in one pollutant may still
result in an outcome within generally accepted standards,
whereas a small increase in another may take it above
the applicable standards

 Prediction of the magnitude of impacts should be an

objective exercise
 The determination of significance is a more subjective
exercise as it normally involves value judgments

06/18/24 19
THE EIA PROCESS
 Prediction should identify:
 direct and indirect impacts (simple cause-
effect diagrams may be useful here)
 geographical extent of impacts (e.g. local,
regional, and national)
 whether the impacts are beneficial or adverse
 the duration of the impacts

06/18/24 20
 THE EIA PROCESS
 How to predict?-Methods and Models:

HOW TO PREDICT

NORMATIVE EXTRAPOLATIVE
METHOD METHODS

work backwards •trend analysis (extrapolating present

from desired
trends, modified to take account of
outcomes to
assess whether changes caused by the project),
the project, in its •scenarios (common sense forecasts of
environmental future state based on variety of
context assumptions),
•analogies (transferring experience from
21
06/18/24 elsewhere to the study in hand)
THE EIA PROCESS
 EVALUATION
 It involves the assessment of the relative
significances of the predicted impacts
 What are the criteria for significance
evaluation?
 the magnitude and likelihood of the impact and
its spatial and temporal extent
 the likely degree of recovery of the affected
environment
 the level of public concern
 political repercussions
06/18/24 22
 THE EIA PROCESS
 MITIGATION:
 Is a method of minimizing any identified adverse
impacts and enhance positive impacts
 PARTICIPATION, PRESENTATION AND REVIEW:
 Why public consultation and participation?
 to assure the quality, comprehensiveness, and effectiveness of
the EIA
 to ensure that the public's views are adequately taken into
consideration in the decision-making process
 In determining the scope of the EIA
 In evaluating the relative significance of the likely impacts
 In providing specialist knowledge about the site
 In proposing mitigation measures
 In ensuring that the EIS is objective, truthful and complete, and
 In monitoring any conditions set on the development
agreement. 23
06/18/24
 THE EIA PROCESS
 MONITORING AND AUDITING AFTER
DECISION:
 The part of the EIS covering monitoring and
management is often referred to as the
Environmental Action Plan or Environmental
Management Plan
 The purpose of monitoring:
 to compare predicted and actual impacts
 The results of monitoring:
 used to manage the environment, particularly to
highlight problems early so that action can be
taken
06/18/24 24
 THE EIA PROCESS
 Typical areas of concern where monitoring is
weak are:
 water quality, both inflow and outflow;
 stress in sensitive ecosystems;
 soil fertility, particularly salanization problems;
 water related health hazards;
 equity of water distributions; groundwater levels
 Auditing:
 done by a separate team of specialists to that working
on the bulk of the EIA
 Lessons learnt and formally described in an audit can
greatly assist in future EIAs and build up the expertise
and efficiency of the concerned institutions

06/18/24 25