Hawassa University

Hawassa Institute of Technology

Department of Water Supply and Environmental
Engineering

Course: Environmental Impact Assessments and Risk

Analysis (WSEE 6043)

Program: [Link]. , Regular , Year 1st , Semester II

Instructor: Desta Solomon (PhD)

 INTRODUCTION

Environmental management is a systematic

approach to finding practical ways for saving water,
energy, and materials, and reducing negative
environmental impacts.
Tools uses to manage our environments are:
• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
• Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)
• Environmental Management Plans/ system(EMS)
 Cont…
• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is interdisciplinary
analyses of the natural, human health, and socio-cultural effects
which are expected to result from public and private sector actions
such as development projects.

• The purpose of these studies is to comprehensively inform decision

makers and the affected public about both the proposed action and
its alternatives, so that wherever possible significant negative
impacts may be avoided, minimized, or mitigated.
 Cont…
• Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) refers to a
formal, systematic process to analyze and address the
environmental effects of policies, plans and programs
and other strategic initiatives.
• This process applies primarily to development-related
initiatives that are known or likely to have significant
environmental effects, notably those initiated individually
in sectors, such as transport and energy, or collectively
through spatial or land use change.
• Generally, policy is understood to be an overall directive
which outlines, guides or sets a context for the
proposed action(s) a government or organization intends
to take.
• It may take the form of a law, document, statement or
precedent. Typically, policy is implemented by plans and
programs, which set out actions, options and measures to
be carried out in a sector or area.
Cont…
• An Environmental Management System (EMS) is
a set of management tools and principles designed
to create the administrative procedures that an
organization needs to integrate environmental
concerns into its daily business practices.
• Or it can be defined as, a “set of processes and
practices that enable an organization to reduce its
environmental impacts and increase its operating
efficiency.’’
Cont….
• An EMS is built on the “Plan, Do, Check, Act” model for
continual improvement.
• In an EMS Standard, the “plan, do, check, act” steps have been
expanded into the following five steps:
Environmental policy,
 planning,
 implementation,
 checking/corrective action and
 Management review
Cont….
• Environmental Policy: Top management commits to
environmental improvement and establishes a written
environmental policy for the company.
• Planning: The Company conducts a review of its operations,
identifies legal requirements and environmental concerns,
establishes objectives, sets targets, and devises a plan for
meeting those targets.
• Implementation: The Company follows through with the plan
by establishing responsibilities, training, communication,
documentation, operating procedures, and an emergency plan to
ensure that environmental targets are met.
• Checking/Corrective Action: The Company monitors its
operations to evaluate whether the targets are being met, and if
not, takes corrective action.
• Management Review: The EMS is modified to optimize its
effectiveness. The review stage creates a loop of continuous
improvement for the company.
Cont….
 Historical Origins of Environmental Management Tools

• Historically, the decades following World War II were a

period of unprecedented economic development and
environmental change.

• The rapid creation of jobs, housing, transportation, and

energy systems were accompanied by widespread
negative environmental transformations including air
and water pollution, destruction of ecosystems, the
conversion of farmlands, and major redevelopment of
historic urban centers.

• These changes were graphically brought into homes

each evening by the new medium of television.
9
 Historical… Contd.
• The emergent environmental movement of the 1960s
played a key role in governments enacting substantive
new environmental laws.

• Typically, each law addressed a specific problem. For

example, the U.S. Clean Air Act, and Clean Water Act
were designed to regulate pollution by setting specific
allowable concentration limits on lists of specific toxic
chemicals in air, water, and on land.

• Other laws focused on such issues as wetlands,

endangered species, and historic preservation.
10
 Historical… Contd.

• These regulatory approaches were highly

effective—but necessarily quite narrow in scope.

• In contrast, a fundamental concept of

environmental understanding and stewardship is
the need for an integrated holistic approach to
knowledge building and decision making.

11
 Historical… Contd.
• The U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of
1969 was the first legislation to provide a robust
framework for allowing all recognized environmental
concerns to be addressed simultaneously.

• Of special note: the work of Lynton Caldwell was a

seminal driver of United States environmental policy
and legislation. He was one of the authors of NEPA.

• He wrote the Draft Resolution on a National Policy for

the Environment that provided the theoretical foundations
of NEPA.

• NEPA was designed to complement, not supersede, other

laws and programs.
12
 Historical… Contd.

• It created the EIA process as a means to integrate the

generation and dissemination of environmental
information, and foster collaboration among the diverse
set of public and private actors and stakeholders
which characterize major, environmentally controversial
decisions.

• Since its enactment, many international organizations—

for example, the European Community, sovereign
countries, provinces or states and local
governments—have passed their own versions of
environmental impact assessment legislation.
13
 Historical… Contd.
• EIA has been in existence since 1970 (when it was
introduced into the United States of America) and has
spread rapidly since then to all parts of the world.

• EIA is still relatively new in some countries, but virtually

all countries have it as a legal or administrative
requirement.

• SEA is a more recent tool: it emerged in the middle to late

1980s as it became clear that the EIA procedures in many
countries did not require the application of EIA to policies,
programs and plans.
14
 Historical… Contd.
• However, it was realized that the implementation of such
actions could have significant environmental
consequences.

• Thus, informally at first, SEA was implemented for such

actions.

• Over time, various moves have been initiated to

introduce administrative requirements for use of SEA
and then to amend existing EIA laws or to introduce
new ones focusing on SEA.
15
 Historical… Contd.

• For instance, the use of SEA became a legal

requirement in all the member states of the European
Union in 2004.

• The use of EIA/SEA has been formalized by the

introduction of national laws and regulations, and in
some cases policies which establish systems of
institutionalized procedures to ensure that all proposed
development-related actions expected to be
environmentally damaging are assessed prior to
authorization and possible implementation.
16
 Historical… Contd.
• These systems of linked and integrated procedures set
out the “rules” by which:
– Individual proposed actions are subject to an
EIA/SEA study;

– Such EIA/SEA is conducted;

– EIA/SEA results and recommendations are used in

decision-making; and

– If an authorization or approval to proceed is obtained,

how the results are used to guide and assist the
implementation and operation of the proposed action.
17
 Major trends in EIA

The evolution of EIA can be divided into four main phases

(Sadler, 1995).

1. Initial development (early 1970s)- introduction

of basic principles, institutional arrangements and
analytical techniques for conducting EIA;

2. Expanding scope (later `70s,early `80s)-

progressive inclusion of social, risk, health and
related factors, improved opportunities for public
participation, greater focus on impact
management; 18
 Major trends Contd.

3. Process redirection (mid-late ‘80’s) – increasing

efforts to address cumulative effects, to integrate
project-level EIA with policy, planning, and
regulatory frameworks, and to establish monitoring,
audit and other follow-up procedures;

4. Towards a sustainability paradigm (to date)-

development of strategic environmental assessment
(SEA), new requirements for EIA established by
international conventions such as biodiversity,
introduction of consensus-based dispute settlement
procedures.
19
 SIGNIFICANT INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS IN
EIA IN THE 1990s

ENTAIL
• Major reference were made to well established EIA
systems;

• The European Community Directives on EIA (1985)

was widely implemented and has driven domestic reform
in the UK and other member states;

• The World Bank and other development assistance

agencies established EIA policies and procedures and
introduced the process to many developing countries;
20
 Intl devt in EIA Contd.

• The UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)

convention on EIA in a Trans-boundary Context (1991)
identified principles and provisions for EIA of projects
and activities with transboundary effects; and

• Additional requirements were placed on EIA by the

UN Conventions on Climate Change and Biological
Diversity (1992).

21
DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT—SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT

• Genuine development reflects sustainability.

• At the Stockholm Conference on the Human

Environment in 1972, the legal implications of
managing resources and the environment were
discussed.

• A World Conservation Strategy was developed in 1980

by the International Union for the Conservation of
Nature (IUCN), the UN Environment Program (UNEP)
and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
22
 Devt and Envt Contd.

• In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and

Development (WCED) proposed a form of
‘development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs’.

• Sustainable development requires consideration of the

economic, social and environmental benefits and costs
from proposed projects, and planning to mitigate
negative impacts.

23
 Devt and Envt Contd.

• The proposed objectives of sustainable development

include promoting economic growth consistent with
rational energy use and minimizing negative
environmental impacts; provide the current generation
with employment and basic needs such as food, clean
drinking water and sanitation; integrating economic
and environmental decision making processes and
considering the needs of future generations.

24
 Devt and Envt Contd.

• This paradigm for development prompts governments

to ensure that each generation passes on to the
subsequent generation an environment in no worse
condition than what was inherited.

• The EIA process is crucial in facilitating this

sustainability objective.

25
 Devt and Envt Contd.

• Unlike conventional economic development, sustainable

development focuses on the quality of development
and the needs of future generations rather than just
economic growth: ‘…It requires a change in the content
of growth…Sustainability requires views of human need
and well-being that incorporate such non-economic
variables as education and health enjoyed for their own
sake, clean air and water and the protection of natural
beauty’.
26
 Devt and Envt Contd.

• This anthropocentric view of the paradigm for

development focuses on protecting human health by

governments adopting a more cautious approach (the

precautionary principle) to the regulation of

development projects, an activity that can have

significant health and environmental impacts.

27
 Devt and Envt Contd.

• Sustainable development can minimize environmental

degradation by imposing an obligation on polluters to pay
for the environmental damage caused by their activities.
This includes mitigating the negative environmental and
social impacts.

• Sustainable development challenges governments and

developers to consider and plan for the needs of both
current and future generations by protecting renewable
natural resources such as water, soil and air, and
conserving non-renewable mineral resources.
28
 Devt and Envt Contd.

• As stated by the United Nations: ‘…natural resources

of the earth…must be safeguarded for the benefit of
present and future generations through careful
planning and management….Nonrenewable resources
must be used in such as way as to guard against the
danger of future exhaustion…Planning must be
applied to human settlement with a view to avoiding
adverse effects on the environment and obtaining
maximum social, economic and environmental
benefits for all’.
29
 Devt and Envt Contd.

• In 1990, sustainable development was described

as an ‘emerging cluster of policies’ under which
governments ‘manage the use of the earth’s
environment and natural resources to ensure
the optimal level of sustainable benefits for
present and succeeding generations’.

30
 ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Encompasses the following constituent components:

• Ecological sustainability:
– An ecosystem being able to support healthy organisms,
whilst maintaining its productivity, adaptability and
capability for renewal (including maintaining biodiversity).
• Social sustainability :
– Reflects the relationship between development and social
norms: an activity is socially sustainable if it conforms to
social norms, or does not stretch them beyond the
community’s tolerance for change.

31
 Environmental Sustainability Contd.

• Economic sustainability:
– Requires that the value of the benefits to the
society in question exceed (or are at least equal to)
the costs incurred, and that some form of
equivalent capital is handed down from one
generation to the next.

32
 Devt and Envt Contd.

• Sustainable development goes far beyond the need to

achieve sustainability in any one system.

• It means improving and maintaining the well-being of

people and ecosystems.

• People need to improve their relationship with each other

and with the ecosystem which support them, by changing
or strengthening their values, knowledge, technologies
and institutions.

33
 Devt and Envt Contd.

• Major obstacles to sustainable development include lack of

agreement on what should be done; resistance by interest
groups who feel threatened by change, and uncertainty
about the costs and benefits of alternatives.

• Overcoming these obstacles requires public discussion,

negotiation and mediation among interest groups, and
development of a political consensus.

34
 WHAT DO WE MEAN BY SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT?

• Sustainable development, like justice and democracy, is a

potential which most people would like to realize, but
which they find hard to define.

• It must be reached through societal decisions that take

account of many local differences, and is a matter of
judgment; balancing social, environmental and economic
objectives.

• Doing it in a way which also balances the needs of the

future with those of the present provides a number of
possible “win-win” situations; but, more often, it will
mean making choices between conflicting objectives.
35
 WHAT DOES SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT REQUIRE?

• Making choices both between different objectives –

social/cultural, economic, environmental— and between
generations;

• Making choices between different times—notably present

and future generations;

• Understanding system complexity;

36
 What does Sustainable…? Contd…

• Accommodating many uncertainties;

• Knowing how to deal with a lack of information;
• Taking account of different levels of sustainability
from the household to the globe; and
• Taking coordinated action across many levels and
groups.

37
KEY PRINCIPLES OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

• (Developed by the Ontario Round Table on the

Environment and economy (1992)
– Anticipating and preventing problems is better than
trying to react and fix them after they occur.
– Accounting must reflect all long- term and economic
costs, not just those of the current market.

38
 Key Principles Contd.

– The best decisions are those based on sound,

accurate, and up-to-date information.

– We must live off the interest our environment

provides and not destroy its capital base.

– The quality of social and economic development

must take precedence over quantity.

39
 EIA/SEA—DEFINITIONS

• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is

interdisciplinary analyses of the natural, human
health, and socio-cultural effects which are expected
to result from public and private sector actions such as
development projects.

• The purpose of these studies is to comprehensively

inform decision makers and the affected public about
both the proposed action and its alternatives, so that
wherever possible significant negative impacts may be
avoided, minimized, or mitigated.
40
 EIA/SEA Contd.

• SEA refers to a formal, systematic process to analyze

and address the environmental effects of policies,
plans and programs and other strategic initiatives.

• This process applies primarily to development-related

initiatives that are known or likely to have significant
environmental effects, notably those initiated
individually in sectors, such as transport and energy,
or collectively through spatial or land use change.

41
 EIA/SEA Contd.

• Generally, policy is understood to be an overall

directive which outlines, guides or sets a context for
the proposed action(s) a government or organization
intends to take.

• It may take the form of a law, document, or statement.

• Typically, policy is implemented by plans and

programs, which set out actions, options and measures
to be carried out in a sector or area.

42
 Why is SEA important?
• SEA extends the aims and principles of EIA to the higher
levels of decision-making when major alternatives are still
open and there is far greater scope than at the project level
to integrate environmental considerations into development
goals and objectives.
• It allows problems of environmental deterioration to be
addressed at their “upstream source” in policy and plan-
making processes, rather than mitigating their “downstream
symptoms” or project-level impacts.
• As such, SEA directly responded to what the World
Commission on Environment and Development (1987)
called “the chief institutional challenge of the1990s”. 43
 Why is SEA important? Contd.

• In addition, SEA can provide early warning of large-scale

and cumulative effects, including those resulting from a
number of smaller-scale projects that individually would
fall under thresholds for triggering a project EIA.
• When applied systematically, this process affords a means
of environmental clearance of key issues related to
whether, where and what forms of development are
environmentally sound and appropriate.
• By doing so, SEA facilitates and contributes to
sustainability assurance, for example by evaluating the
effect of a national transport plan or program, inter
alia, against CO2 emission commitments made by a
country under the Kyoto Protocol. 44
 How does SEA compare to or differ from EIA?

• SEA of policy, plans and programs differs from

EIA of projects in certain respects in addition to
those aspects emphasized above, which relate to
the higher level of application to decision-
making, the broader range of alternatives open
to consideration and the greater opportunity to
achieve environmental objectives.

45
 SEA vs. EIA Contd.

• Some of the distinctive characteristics of SEA

compared to EIA include:
–Greater uncertainty about the effects of a policy
(general directive) as compared to a project
(concrete actions);
–Broader range of environmental consequences
to be considered (from implications to impacts);
–Wider set of linkages and trade-offs with
economic and social issues (e.g. a national energy
policy or plan compared to a power station); and
46
 SEA vs. EIA Contd.
–Larger scale/ longer time frames to take account
of environmental effects and consequences (e.g.
implications of CO2 emissions for climate change).
• Yet SEA and EIA also have many similarities and a
common foundation.

• SEA has developed largely as a response to the levels and

types of decision-making not covered by EIA.

• In doing so, SEA has derived, adapted and implemented

EIA arrangements, procedure and methodology, particularly
at the plan and program level. 47
 SEA vs. EIA Contd.

• Other process models also have been adapted,

particularly at the policy level where integrative
appraisal and environmental “tests” compress
the basic steps followed in EIA, such as
screening and reporting.

48