Volume 4, Issue 4, December 2013, Pages 628–635
Babajide Milton Macaulay1 and Simon Richie2
1 Sustainable Environmental Management Programme, Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, Medway campus, Kent, United Kingdom
2 Department of Environmental Sciences, School of Sciences, University of Greenwich, Medway campus, Kent, United Kingdom
Original language: English
Copyright © 2013 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Rapid project development in human societies across the globe has led to the need to strengthen environmental regulation in order to protect the environment, its features and inhabitants from the negative consequences of development without stifling urbanisation. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is therefore, a legally-recognised measure of controlling the excesses of developers or proponents. This study investigated the wide variation in global EIA practice in terms of screening, scoping and administration. The current underlying challenges associated with the practice of EIA across the globe such as inadequate monitoring, bribery, excessive bureaucracy and obsolete environmental legislations were also studied. Some of the challenges were country or region-specific due to the following factors: geographical location, project type, socio-economic pattern and legal institutional framework; however, recommendations were offered on how these challenges can be managed effectively considering the environmental-specificity of the affected countries. The recommendations include: merging identical EIA administrative authorities to reduce bureaucracy; EIA should be carried out by the competent authority in each country and proper post-development monitoring should be encouraged as these would help curtail bribery and reduce bias; check and balance mechanisms must be set in place so as to reduce the excesses of the proponents since they fund the monitoring process; old legal EIA documents in affected countries should be reviewed to meet current needs.
Author Keywords: Environmental Impact Assessment, global EIA practice, variation in EIA, EIA challenges, Screening in EIA, Scoping in EIA, EIA administration.
Babajide Milton Macaulay1 and Simon Richie2
1 Sustainable Environmental Management Programme, Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich, Medway campus, Kent, United Kingdom
2 Department of Environmental Sciences, School of Sciences, University of Greenwich, Medway campus, Kent, United Kingdom
Original language: English
Copyright © 2013 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Rapid project development in human societies across the globe has led to the need to strengthen environmental regulation in order to protect the environment, its features and inhabitants from the negative consequences of development without stifling urbanisation. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is therefore, a legally-recognised measure of controlling the excesses of developers or proponents. This study investigated the wide variation in global EIA practice in terms of screening, scoping and administration. The current underlying challenges associated with the practice of EIA across the globe such as inadequate monitoring, bribery, excessive bureaucracy and obsolete environmental legislations were also studied. Some of the challenges were country or region-specific due to the following factors: geographical location, project type, socio-economic pattern and legal institutional framework; however, recommendations were offered on how these challenges can be managed effectively considering the environmental-specificity of the affected countries. The recommendations include: merging identical EIA administrative authorities to reduce bureaucracy; EIA should be carried out by the competent authority in each country and proper post-development monitoring should be encouraged as these would help curtail bribery and reduce bias; check and balance mechanisms must be set in place so as to reduce the excesses of the proponents since they fund the monitoring process; old legal EIA documents in affected countries should be reviewed to meet current needs.
Author Keywords: Environmental Impact Assessment, global EIA practice, variation in EIA, EIA challenges, Screening in EIA, Scoping in EIA, EIA administration.
How to Cite this Article
Babajide Milton Macaulay and Simon Richie, “Variation and Challenges in the Global Practice of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA),” International Journal of Innovation and Applied Studies, vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 628–635, December 2013.
