EIA Process
G Chipula PhD
• The way in which an EIA is carried out is not rigid:
it is a process comprising a series of steps.
• These steps are outlined below and the
techniques more commonly used in EIA are
described in some detail in the section
Techniques.
• The main steps in the EIA process are:
i. Screening
ii. Scoping
iii. prediction and mitigation
iv. management and monitoring
v. audit
a general flow diagram of the EIA process, how it fits in with parallel technical and
economic studies and the role of public participation.
Flow diagram of the EIA process and parallel studies
• Screening often results in a categorization of the project and from
this a decision is made on whether or not a full EIA is to be carried
out.
• Scoping is the process of determining which are the most critical
issues to study and will involve community participation to some
degree. It is at this early stage that EIA can most strongly influence
the outline proposal.
• Detailed prediction and mitigation studies follow scoping and are
carried out in parallel with feasibility studies.
• The main output report is called an Environmental Impact
Statement, and contains a detailed plan for managing and
monitoring environmental impacts both during and after
implementation.
• Finally, an audit of the EIA process is carried out some time after
implementation. The audit serves a useful feedback and learning
function.
RESOURCES
• An EIA team for an irrigation and drainage study is
likely to be composed of some or all of the
following:
a team leader; a hydrologist; an irrigation /
drainage engineer; a fisheries
biologist/ecologist; an agronomist/pesticide
expert; a soil conservation expert; a
biological/environmental scientist; an
economist, a social scientist and a health
scientist (preferably a epidemiologist).
• Specialists may also be required for fieldwork,
laboratory testing, library research, data
processing, surveys and modelling.
• The team leader will require significant
management skill to coordinate the work of a team
• The cost of the study will vary considerably and only very
general estimates can be given here.
• Typically, costs vary from between 0.1 and 0.3 percent of the
total project cost for large pro-jects over US$ 100 million and
from 0.2 to 0.5 percent for projects less than US$ 100
million.
• For small projects the cost could increase to between 1 and
3 percent of the project cost
SCREENING
• Screening is the process of deciding on whether an
EIA is required.
• This may be determined by size (e.g. greater than
a predetermined surface area of irrigated land that
would be affected, more than a certain percentage
or flow to be diverted or more than a certain
capital expenditure).
• Alternatively it may be based on site-specific
information. For example, the repair of a recently
destroyed diversion structure is unlikely to require
an EIA whilst a major new headwork structure may.
• Guidelines for whether or not an EIA is required
will be country specific depending on the laws or
norms in operation. Legislation often specifies the
criteria for screening and full EIA.
• All major donors screen projects presented for financing to
decide whether an EIA is required.
• The output from the screening process is often a document
called an Initial Environmental Examination or Evaluation (IEE).
• The main conclusion will be a classification of the project
according to its likely environmental sensitivity.
• This will determine whether an EIA is needed and if so to what
detail.
SCOPING
• Scoping occurs early in the project cycle at the
same time as outline planning and pre-feasibility
studies.
• Scoping is the process of identifying the key
environmental issues and is perhaps the most
important step in an EIA.
• Several groups, particularly decision makers, the
local population and the scientific community, have
an interest in helping to deliberate the issues
which should be considered, and scoping is
designed to canvass their views.
• Scoping is important for two reasons.
i. So that problems can be pinpointed early allowing
mitigating design changes to be made before
expensive detailed work is carried out.
ii. To ensure that detailed prediction work is only
carried out for important issues. It is not the
purpose of an EIA to carry out exhaustive studies
on all environmental impacts for all projects.
• If key issues are identified and a full scale EIA
considered necessary then the scoping should
include terms of reference for these further
studies.
• At this stage the option exists for cancelling or
drastically revising the project should major
environmental problems be identified.
• Equally it may be the end of the EIA process
should the impacts be found to be insignificant.
• Once this stage has passed, the opportunity for
major changes to the project is restricted.
• A major activity of scoping is to identify key
interest groups, both governmental and non-
governmental, and to establish good lines of
communication.
• Rapid rural appraisal techniques provide a means
of assessing the needs and views of the affected
population.
• The main EIA techniques used in scoping are
baseline studies, checklists, matrices and network
diagrams.
• These techniques collect and present knowledge
and information in a straightforward way so that
logical decisions can be made about which
impacts are most significant
PREDICTION AND MITIGATION
• Once the scoping exercise is complete and the
major impacts to be studied have been identified,
prediction work can start.
• This stage forms the central part of an EIA.
• Several major options are likely to have been
proposed either at the scoping stage or before and
each option may require separate prediction
studies.
• Realistic and affordable mitigating measures cannot
be proposed without first estimating the scope of
• An important outcome of this stage will be
recommendations for mitigating measures.
• This would be contained in the Environmental
Impact Statement.
• Clearly the aim will be to introduce measures
which minimize any identified adverse impacts
and enhance positive impacts.
• Formal and informal communication links need to
be established with teams carrying out feasibility
studies so that their work can take proposals into
account.
• Similarly, feasibility studies may indicate that
some options are technically or economically
unacceptable and thus environmental prediction
work for these options will not be required.
• Many mitigating measures do not define physical
changes but require management or institutional
changes or additional investment, such as for
health services.
• Mitigating measures may also be procedural
changes, for example, the introduction of, or
increase in, irrigation service fees to promote
efficiency and water conservation.
• By the time prediction and mitigation are
undertaken, the project preparation will be
advanced and a decision will most likely have
been made to proceed with the project.
• For example, an acceptable measure might be to
alter the mode of operation of a reservoir to
protect downstream fisheries, but a measure
proposing an alternative to dam construction could
be highly contentious at this stage.
• This phase of an EIA will require good
management of a wide range of technical
specialists with particular emphasis on:
i. prediction methods;
ii. interpretation of predictions, with and without
mitigating measures;
iii. assessment of comparisons.
• Mathematical modelling is a valuable technique
to assess the accurancy of prediction, but care
must be taken to choose models that suit the
available data.
• Expert advice, particularly from experts familiar
with the locality, can provide quantification of
impacts that cannot be modelled.
• Checklists, matrices, networks diagrams,
graphical comparisons and overlays, are all
techniques developed to help carry out an EIA and
present the results of an EIA in a format useful for
comparing options.
• The main quantifiable methods of comparing
options are by applying weightings, to
environmental impacts or using economic cost-
benefit analysis or a combination of the two.
• Numerical values, or weightings, can be applied
to different environmental impacts to
(subjectively) define their relative importance.
• Economic techniques, can provide insight into
comparative importance where different
environmental impacts are to be compared, such
as either losing more wetlands or resettling a
greater number of people.
• The uncertainty in predicting the impact should be
clearly noted.
• Finally, the time frame in which the impact will
occur should be indicated, including whether or not
the impact is irreversible.
MANAGEMENT AND MONITORING
• The part of the EIS covering monitoring and
management is often referred to as the
Environmental Action Plan or Environmental
Management Plan.
• This section not only sets out the mitigation measures
needed for environmental management, both in the
short and long term, but also the institutional
requirements for implementation.
• The purpose of monitoring is to compare predicted
and actual impacts, particularly if the impacts are
either very important or the scale of the impact
cannot be very accurately predicted.
• The results of monitoring can be used to manage
the environment, particularly to highlight problems
early so that action can be taken.
• The range of parameters requiring monitoring may
be broad or narrow and will be dictated by the
“prediction and mitigation” stage of the EIA.
• Typical areas of concern where monitoring is weak
are: water quality, both inflow and outflow; stress
in sensitive ecosystems; soil fertility, particularly
salinization problems; water related health
hazards; equity of water distributions; groundwater
levels.
• The use of satellite imagery to monitor changes
in land use and the “health” of the land and sea
is becoming more common and can prove a cost-
effective tool, particularly in areas with poor
access.
• Remotely sensed data have the advantage of not
being constrained by political and administrative
boundaries.
• If the need for monitoring ceases, data collection
should cease.
• Conversely, monitoring may reveal the need for
more intensive study and the institutional
infrastructure must be sufficiently flexible to
• The information obtained from monitoring and
management can be extremely useful for future
EIAs, making them both more accurate and more
efficient.
AUDITING
• In order to capitalise on the experience and
knowledge gained, the last stage of an EIA is to
carry out an Environmental Audit some time
after completion of the project or implementation
of a programme.
• It will therefore usually be done by a separate
team of specialists to that working on the bulk of
the EIA. .
• The audit should include an analysis of the
technical, procedural and decision-making aspects
of the EIA.
• Technical aspects include:
i. the adequacy of the baseline studies,
ii. the accuracy of predictions
iii. the suitability of mitigation measures.
• Procedural aspects include:
i. the efficiency of the procedure,
ii. the fairness of the public involvement
measures
iii. the degree of coordination of roles and
responsibilities.
• Decision-making aspects include:
i. the utility of the process for decision making
ii. the implications for development
• The audit will determine whether
recommendations and requirements made by the
earlier EIA steps were incorporated successfully
into project implementation.
• 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.
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
• Projects or programmes have significant impacts
on the local population.
• Whilst the aim is to improve the well being of the
population, a lack of understanding of the people
and their society may result in development that
has considerable negative consequences.
• More significantly, there may be divergence
between national economic interests and those of
the local population.
• The EIA provides an ideal forum for checking that
the affected public have been adequately
consulted and their views taken into account in
project preparation
• Public consultation will reveal new information,
improve understanding and enable better choices
to be made.
• Without consultation, legitimate issues may not
• be
Theheard, leading
community to conflict
should andbe
not only unsustainability
consulted they
should be actively involved in environmental
matters.
• The International Union for the Conservation of
Nature, IUCN promotes the concept of Primary
Environmental Care whereby farmers, for
example, with assistance from extension
services, are directly involved in environmental
management.
• The range of groups outside the formal structure
with relevant information are likely to include:
technical and scientific societies; Water User
Groups; NGOs; experts on local culture; and
religious groups.
• However, it is important to find out which groups
are under-represented and which ones are
responsible for access to natural resources,
namely: grazing, water, fishing and forest
products.
• The views of racial minorities, women, religious
minorities, political minorities and lower cast
groups are commonly overlooked,
• Information dissemination can be achieved using
a number of mechanisms including the
broadcasting media, in particular newspapers and
radio.
• Posters and leaflets are also useful and need to
be distributed widely to such locations as schools,
clinics, post offices, community centres, religious
buildings, bus stops, shops etc.
• The EIA process must be seen to be fair.
MANAGING UNCERTAINTY
• An EIA involves prediction and thus uncertainty is
an integral part.
• There are two types of uncertainty associated
with environmental impact assessments:
i. that associated with the process; whether the
most important impacts have been identified or
whether recommendations will be acted upon or
ignored.
ii. that associated with predictions; the uncertainty
is in the accuracy of the findings.
The main types of uncertainty and the ways in which
they can be minimized are summarized as follows:
i. uncertainty of prediction: this is important at the
data collection stage and the final certainty will only
be resolved once implementation commences.
Research can reduce the uncertainty;
ii. uncertainty of values: this reflects the approach
taken in the EIA process. Final certainty will be
determined at the time decisions are made.
Improved communications and extensive
negotiations should reduce this uncertainty;
iii. uncertainty of related decision: this affects the
decision making element of the EIA process and final
certainty will be determined by post evaluation.
Improved coordination will reduce uncertainty.
• The accuracy of predictions is dependant on a
variety of factors such as lack of data or lack of
knowledge.
• It is important not to focus on predictions that are
relatively easy to calculate at the expense of
impacts that may be far more significant but
difficult to analyse.
• Prediction capabilities are generally good in the
physical and chemical sciences, moderate in
ecological sciences and poor in social sciences.
• Surveys are the most wide-spread technique for
estimating people’s responses and possible future
actions.
• The results of the EIA should indicate the level of
uncertainty with the use of confidence limits and
probability analyses wherever possible.
• Sensitivity analysis similar to that used in
economic evaluation, could be used if adequate
quantifiable data are available.
TERM GROUP ASSIGNMENT
With funding from CABMACC, The agricultural Engineering
would like to develop 11 ha of land into a surface irrigation
with water from the Aquaculture dam. The area ear marked
for the irrigation scheme has villages with about 1300
households, a wetland and known for having shallow water
table. The water source, is used by the aquaculture and
fisheries science department while down stream of the dam
is an orchard owned by the Horticulture department.
With necessary assumptions conduct an Environmental
Impact assessment for the establishment of the irrigation
scheme which should include an Environmental
Management Plan.
Submission Date: 9th July 2015