PROFILE: Integrating Sustainability and Environmental Impact Assessment

/ Environmental impact assessment (EIA) has been identified as an important instrument for facilitating sustainability. However, to do so requires the integration of sustainability into EIA theory and practice. The sustainability concept is a valid and important environmental management perspective. However, many issues and obstacles need to be addressed further if the concept is to be translated into practical strategies. Sustainability can potentially infuse EIA with a clearer sense of direction, an ethical foundation, a mechanism for establishing priorities and assessing choices, and a means of linking EIA to other environmental management instruments. Conceptually, EIA and sustainability can be integrated, but frameworks should be refined, adpated to context, and linked to related initiatives. Sustainability should be explicitly incorporated into EIA legislation, guidelines, and institutional arrangements. An experimental approach to testing, assessing, and sharing experiences is suggested.A framework is first presented that defines and characterizes the sustainability concept. A further framework is then described for integrating sustainability into EIA at the conceptual level. The integration of sustainability and EIA at the regulatory level is next addressed through an overview of sustainability initiatives in EIA requirements in Canada. The Canadian examples include many promising initiatives but these and other experiences will need to be monitored, shared, and integrated into comprehensive environmental management strategies. Finally, means of incorporating sustainability into each activity in the EIA planning process are identified.KEY WORDS: Sustainability; Environmental impact assessment     

环境风险评价构架的探讨

本文归纳并概括了国际上和我国环境风险评价的一般构架,从环境风险评价、安全评价、健康评价、生态评价、最大可信灾害事故及最大可接受水平等几个方面对我国环境风险评价一般构架进行了探讨,分析了我国环境风险评价构架中存在的问题,提出了进一步完善我国环境风险评价一般构架的方法,并辅以了案例分析。     

Environmental Impact Assessment and Management: An Underexplored Relationship

In this paper the existing body of theory is reviewed to highlight the need for further attention to be paid to the EIA/management relationship. In particular it is shown that the majority of the literature to date has concentrated on the influence of EIA leading up to and including the decision to proceed or not with the proposed action. Less attention has been paid to the extension of the influence of EIA beyond this point to inform the process of ongoing environmental management. This relationship is then explored by reference to the Western Australian EIA system. One of the strengths of this system is its focus upon the implementation and management of proposed developments. The outcome of EIA is generally an approval to proceed with the development subject to meeting a suite of environmental design and management objectives.     

Integrating Strategic Environmental Assessment with Industry Planning: A Case Study of the Pasquai-Porcupine Forest Management Plan,Saskatchewan, Canada

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is gaining widespread recognition as a tool for integrating environmental considerations in policy, plan, and program development and decision-making. Notwithstanding the potential of SEA to improve higher-order decision processes, there has been very little attention given to integrating SEA with industry planning practices. As a result, the benefits of SEA have yet to be fully realized among industrial proponents. That said, SEA practice is ongoing, albeit informally and often under a different label, and is proving to be a valuable tool for industry planning and decision-making. Based on a case study of the Pasquai-Porcupine forest management plan in Saskatchewan, Canada, this paper illustrates how an integrated approach to SEA can contribute to industry environmental decision-making and can enhance the quality and deliverability of industry plans.     

Environmental implications for disaster preparedness: lessons learnt from the Indian Ocean Tsunami

The impact of disasters, whether natural or man-made, not only has human dimensions, but environmental ones as well. Environmental conditions may exacerbate the impact of a disaster, and vice versa, disasters tend to have an impact on the environment. Deforestation, forest management practices, or agriculture systems can worsen the negative environmental impacts of a storm or typhoon, leading to landslides, flooding, silting, and ground/surface water contamination. We have only now come to understand these cyclical causes and impacts and realize that taking care of our natural resources and managing them wisely not only assures that future generations will be able to live in sustainable ways, but also reduces the risks that natural and man-made hazards pose to people living today. Emphasizing and reinforcing the centrality of environmental concerns in disaster management has become a critical priority, requiring the sound management of natural resources as a tool to prevent disasters and lessen their impacts on people, their homes, and livelihoods. As the horrors of the Asian tsunami of December 2004 continue to be evaluated, and people in the region slowly attempt to build a semblance of normalcy, we have to look to the lessons learnt from the tsunami disaster as an opportunity to prepare ourselves better for future disasters. This article focuses on findings and lessons learnt on the environmental aspects of the tsunami, and its implications on disaster preparedness plans. This article essentially emphasizes the cyclical interrelations between environments and disasters, by studying the findings and assessments of the recent Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that struck on 26 December 2004. It specifically looks at four key affected countries - Maldives, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand.     

Environmental Justice,Local Knowledge,and Risk: The Discourse of a Community-Based Cumulative Exposure Assessment

While risk assessment continues to drive most environmental management decision-making, its methods and assumptions have been criticized for, among other things, perpetuating environmental injustice. The justice challenges to risk assessment claim that the process ignores the unique and multiple hazards facing low-income and people of color communities and simultaneously excludes the local, non-expert knowledge which could help capture these unique hazards from the assessment discourse. This paper highlights some of these challenges to conventional risk assessment and suggests that traditional models of risk characterization will continue to ignore the environmental justice challenges until cumulative hazards and local knowledge are meaningfully brought into the assessment process. We ask whether a shift from risk to exposure assessment might enable environmental managers to respond to the environmental justice critiques. We review the US EPA's first community-based Cumulative Exposure Project, piloted in Brooklyn, NY, and highlight to what extent this process addressed the risk assessment critiques raised by environmental justice advocates. We suggest that a shift from risk to exposure assessment can provide an opportunity for local knowledge to both improve the technical assessment and its democratic nature and may ultimately allow environmental managers to better address environmental justice concerns in decision-making.     

我国环境影响评价公众参与工作存在的问题及解决对策

本文通过对我国环境影响评价公众参与发展历程的回顾和采用对比法分析各省市出台的相关公众参与的实施办法或条例的基础上,分析我国环评公众参与具体操作过程中存在公众参与作用边界被无限放大、参与对象缺乏代表性和形式单一等问题,从信息公开制度、公众参与对象的选择、公众参与形式、公示内容、公众反馈意见等方面提出提高公众参与有效性的对策和建议.     

环境评价大纲编制的几个问题

就环境评价大纲编制中的几个问题,提出了自己的看法。     

Risk management: Time for innovative approaches

Risk management practices under the current environmental regulations is a long, complex process that considers scientific, technologic, and management factors to develop various regulatory standards and pollution control measures. Using the mandatory enforcement approach, sometimes referred to as “command-and-control”, a set of preliminary environmental goals, such as better air and water qualities, were achieved. However, the information-intensive nature of the risk management process and the lack of flexibility in conventional regulatory methods to changing economic and technologic realities of the decade has created interest among risk managers to examine some innovative management approaches. Above all, environmental problems of a global scale require novel management methods while striving to achieve the desired environmental goals. As the principal analytical tool in risk management, quantitative risk assessment exerts considerable influence on the risk management process. Therefore, advances in risk management are closely associated with scientific developments that enhance the risk assessment process, particularly those efforts aimed at improving human exposure and toxicity assessments. Market incentives, information dissemination, creative enforcement practices, and interagency and intergovernmental interactions were identified as the key elements of innovative environmental risk management practices. This paper will present an overview of the emerging innovative risk management approaches.     

几个涉外火电厂环境影响评价的探讨

近年来我们陆续承接了一些发展中国家电力工程中环境影响评价的招标，议标工作和世界银行（以下简称世行）在国内贷款项目的环境影响评价。本文就工作中所涉及的环境影响评价的深度和广度，执行标准，以及今后工作中有待加强的方面作了一些探讨。     

环境质量评价与预测方法的现状

本文对当前国内外环境质量评价和预测的方法进行了评述,对各种方法的特点进行了分析与比较,指出今后环境质量评价和预测方法的可能发展前景     

Environmental indicators for communication of life cycle impact assessment results and their applications

Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is performed to quantitatively evaluate all environmental impacts from products, systems, processes and services. However, LCIA does not always provide valuable information for choosing among alternatives with different specifications, functionalities and lifetimes. The objectives of this study are (1) to propose environmental indicators to evaluate environmental efficiency and value qualitatively and quantitatively on the basis of analogies to financial and economic indicators, and (2) to present the application of the indicators. Incremental evaluation using a reference is employed to obtain the environmental indicators. The environmental efficiency indicators are conceptually based on the ratios of reduced environmental burdens returned to environmental burdens required: environmental return on investment, environmental payback period and environmental internal rate of return. The environmental value indicator is the sum of all reduced and required environmental burdens: i.e., environmental net present value. All the environmental indicators can be used to compare and rank the environmental efficiencies or values of alternatives. The environmental efficiency indicators can be applied to a new environmental labeling. The concept of eco-efficiency labeling is developed by combining the environmental efficiency indicators with financial indicators. A case study is performed to illustrate the necessity and importance of the environmental indicators. These environmental indicators can help easily communicate LCIA results in the field of environmental management.     

Evaluation of Environmental Aspects Significance in ISO 14001

The methodological framework set by standards ISO 14001 and ISO 14004 gives only general principles for environmental aspects assessment, which is regarded as one of the most critical stages of implementing environmental management system. In Estonia, about 100 organizations have been certified to the ISO 14001. Experience obtained from numerous companies has demonstrated that limited transparency and reproducibility of the assessment process serves as a common shortcoming. Despite rather complicated assessment schemes sometimes used, the evaluation procedures have been largely based on subjective judgments because of ill-defined and inadequate assessment criteria. A comparison with some similar studies in other countries indicates a general nature of observed inconsistencies. The diversity of approaches to the aspects’ assessment in concept literature and to the related problems has been discussed. The general structure of basic assessment criteria, compatible with environmental impact assessment and environmental risk analysis has also been outlined. Based on this general structure, the article presents a tiered approach to help organize the assessment in a more consistent manner.     

Environmental impact assessment: An international evaluation

Experiences with environmental impact assessment (EIA) in a number of countries are discussed in the light of both explicit and implicit goals and objectives. Adequate environmental information is not always available to decision makers because of failure to apply EIA to all relevant decisions, the continuing inadequacies of prediction and evaluation techniques, the failure to consider alternatives adequately, and the bias of some EISs. EIA frequently results in changes to proposals and may result in stricter environmental management conditions in some cases, but some people regard it as a failure because it has not stopped development. Generally, EIA leads to better integration of environmental factors into project planning. Open procedures and freedom of information encourage responsiveness to EIA procedures, which can be weakened by discretionary powers and lack of access to the courts by public interest groups. However, legal standing may have side effects that offset its advantages. EIA can encourage cooperation and coordination between agencies but does not ensure them. Similarly, it can have a limited role in coordinating interstate and international policies. In the long term, the success of EIA depends on adequate monitoring, reassessment, and enforcement over the life of the project. EIA has generally opened up new opportunities for public participation, and may help to reduce conflict. EIA procedures need to be integrated with other environmental protection and development control programs, and various means exist for reducing its cost to developers and the public.     

我国环境影响评价与社会稳定风险评估制度关系的思考

环境影响评价制度和社会稳定风险评估制度作为预防和控制环境影响、创新社会风险管理的重要制度,实施以来发挥了重要作用,但也出现了工作边界和内容范围交叉的问题。尤其是近年来,环境污染焦虑引发社会风险事件的建设项目不断增多,导致两者的"天然联系"愈发紧密,工作存在模糊地带的问题愈发凸显,致使建设项目行政审批繁复、执行力差。在梳理环评、稳评的发展历程和存在问题的基础上,深入分析了环评和稳评的法律地位、适用范围、评价目标、评价内容、实施主体和程序上的异同,剖析了两者在制度设计和内容衔接方面的关系,并从理清工作边界职责、环境社会风险评估结果共享、强化稳评公众参与等方面提出了环评和稳评政策衔接的建议,为政府有效实施建设项目环境、社会监管提供决策参考。     

Self-Organizing Maps for Integrated Environmental Assessment of the Mid-Atlantic Region

A new method has been developed to perform environmental assessment at regional scale. This involves a combination of a self-organizing map (SOM) neural network and principal component analysis (PCA). The method is capable of clustering ecosystems in terms of environmental conditions and suggesting relative cumulative environmental impacts of multiple factors across a large region. Using data on land-cover, population, roads, streams, air pollution, and topography of the Mid-Atlantic region, the method was able to indicate areas that are in relatively poor environmental condition or vulnerable to future deterioration. Combining the strengths of SOM with those of PCA, the method offers an easy and useful way to perform a regional environmental assessment. Compared with traditional clustering and ranking approaches, the described method has considerable advantages, such as providing a valuable means for visualizing complex multidimensional environmental data at multiple scales and offering a single assessment or ranking needed for a regional environmental assessment while still facilitating the opportunity for more detailed analyses.     

环境风险评价的实践与发展

环境风险评价（Environmental Risk Assessment ERA）是环境影响评价的一个重要分支,主要分析评价环境中的潜在危险。本文围绕开展ERA的必要怀、国内外ERA发展现状等方面进行了评述,在此基础上针对目前ERA工作中的不足提出了三点建议。     

An Integrated Framework for Public Sector Environmental Management in Developing Countries

/ Achieving successful and well-integrated environmental management depends on principled and orderly assignment of responsibilities within and between public sector organizations. Guidelines for making these assignments can be found by considering different modes of public response in light of a framework based on some distinguishable patterns in the complexity they exhibit. The basic dimensions of environmental problems can be used to identify these patterns. Two examples from current environmental problems in Taiwan are given, illustrating how this framework can be put to use.     

PROFILE: Indigenous Institutions and Environmental Assessment: The Case of Ghana

/ The search for sustainable development provides the impetus forexamining the role of indigenous institutions and their ecological knowledgein environmental assessment and local sustainability. This paper attempts totrace the evolution of environmental assessment in Ghana. Focusing on theAshanti Region, the paper further discusses the nature and operations ofindigenous institutions, their ecological knowledge, beliefs, practices, andsocial norms that are relevant to environmental assessment process in thecountry. Some of the challenges that emerge from the discussions arehighlighted. There is a need to establish environmental assessment andcooperative management boards that would include representatives ofindigenous institutions. In addition, the introduction of technicaldictionaries and training manuals based on indigenous ecological knowledgeand their humane environmental practices will further improve theenvironmental assessment process in Ghana.KEY WORDS: Environmental assessment; Indigenous institutions; Indigenousecological knowledge; Sustainable development; Environmental assessmentboards