The role of public involvement in environmental impact assessment in Vietnam: towards a more culturally sensitive approach

This paper explores the extent to which Western approaches to public involvement in environmental impact assessment (EIA) have been transferred to Vietnam, constraints on their use, and their appropriateness for the Vietnamese context. The research is based on an analysis of the public involvement content found in 26 EIA reports from development banks and interviews with 26 key informants. The study found that public involvement in Vietnam is generally technocratic, expert-driven and non-transparent, similar to the early days of EIA in the West and emerging economies. Public involvement usually occurs through authorised state channels such as commune leaders, mass organisations and professional organisations. The lack of a participatory culture for EIA, the nascent nature of grassroots democracy in the country, and Vietnamese cultural norms regarding respect for authority provide a challenging context for involving the public in EIA. The paper concludes by offering a number of suggestions for culturally appropriate public involvement at a time when Vietnam has just introduced mandatory public consultation for EIAs.     

Use of the guild concept in environmental impact assessment

The purpose of this paper was to clarify and expand several ideas concerning use of the guild concept in environmental impact assessment Background material on the concept and examples of its use are given. It is argued that for purposes of environmental assessment a resource-based guild approach is preferable to a taxonomic-based approach. Validity of the guild concept, problems in classifying species into guilds, implications of guild membership, and usefulness of guild analyses are discussed. I conclude that only with a thorough knowledge of both its limitations and benefits will it be possible to fully use the guild concept for understanding organizational processes in communities and ecosystems and for assessing environmental impacts.     

Multiattribute Utility Analysis as a Framework for Public Participation in Siting a Hazardous Waste Management Facility

This paper describes a public participation exercise in which stakeholders used an approach based on multiattribute utility analysis to select a site for a hazardous waste management facility. The key to success was the ability to separate and address two types of judgments inherent in environmental decisions—technical judgments regarding the likely consequences of alternative choices and value judgments regarding the importance or seriousness of those consequences. The approach enabled technical specialists to communicate the essential technical considerations and allowed stakeholders to establish the value judgments for the decision. Although rarely used in public participation, the multiattribute utility approach appears to provide a useful framework for the collaborative resolution of complex environmental decision problems.     

Application of the DPSIR framework to environmental degradation assessment in northern Ghana

In many communities in northern Ghana, the environment has been altered by complex natural and human driven forces with significant impact on the lives of their inhabitants. The need to formulate an improved, holistic and consistent methodological approach to assess the problem is critical for sustainable natural resource management. This paper examines the potential of the DPSIR environmental assessment framework utilizing GIS‐based participatory methodology in the assessment of environmental degradation in northern Ghana. Community truthing tools such as key informant interviews, focus group discussions, participant observation and participatory Geographical Information Systems (GIS) were employed as a means of soliciting societal responses integrated to conventional GIS spatial analysis to measure the indicators of the Driving force–Pressure–State–Impacts–Response (DPSIR) assessment framework. Post classification GIS imagery results show a marked natural vegetation decrease of 634 km2 (42%) of the study area with a corresponding increase of 600 km² (39%) of grasses and built‐up and barren environment in the period of 14 years from 1990 to 2004. This is attributed to extreme climatic conditions and human driven causes such as poverty, population growth, migration and land tenure system. Poverty reduction strategies, amendment of the Mining and Mineral Law (PNDC law 153), improvement of the existing land tenure system and the control of migrants and Fulani herdsmen from neighbouring Burkina Faso were some of the solutions selected by the research participants, to be emphasized in the National Environmental Action Plan (EPA Act 490). This paper concludes that the DPSIR environmental assessment framework is an effective means of organizing complex environmental information to facilitate policy decision making.     

Treatment of risk in environmental impact assessment

Risk assessment and environmental impact assessment have developed as separate traditions. While environmental impact assessment is a broad field that includes all activities that attempt to analyze and evaluate the effects of human and related actions on the environment, risk assessment has been concerned with the relatively well-defined regulatory problems and employs formal quantitative analysis of the probability of specific undesired events, such as cancer. Risk analytic approaches, particularly the explicit treatment of uncertainty, can significantly contribute to environmental assessments. This article discusses the type and sources of uncertainty in environmental assessments, techniques for their quantification, and ways to use uncertainty estimates to calculate probabilities of effects or probabilities of exceeding environmental standards and to determine the need for mitigation or additional research.This article was presented at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, Task Force Meeting on Risk and Policy Analysis under Conditions of Uncertainty, Laxenburg, Austria, November 1985.     

The effects of perceived conflict,resource scarcity,and information bias on emotions and environmental decisions

The failure to anticipate the public's response to environmental problems can lead to expensive delays, bad public relations, and litigation, as well as environmental decisions that do not represent public values and preferences. This study examines the influence of conflict between management goals, perceived resource scarcity, and information bias on evaluations of the importance of management goals; the perception of conflicts among the goals; and the emotions evoked in an urban forest management problem. Environmental problem scenarios were systematically manipulated as to the level of conflict between development and natural preservation goals, the scarcity of urban nature, and the bias of the presented information. Evaluations of the importance of urban nature and economic development were susceptible to manipulations of scarcity. The importance of urban nature was also higher when information was biased toward pro-preservation issues. Negative emotions were associated with high conflict and scarcity and with the propreservation information bias. Both evaluations of goal importance and conflict among goals appeared to be based on an underlying economics-versus-amenity dimension. These results are similar to previous studies of environmental decision making with regard to nonurban environmental problems. This research offers a beginning in understanding and anticipating the way members of the public may respond to information about environmental problems.     

Importance of insects in environmental impact assessment

Insects are particularly suited for use in environmental impact assessment (e.i.a.) because of their high species diversity, ubiquitous occurrence, and importance in the functioning of natural ecosystems. Examples are given of the use of insects in the predictive phase of e.i.a., in the monitoring and assessment phase, and in the much rarer instance of an e.i.a. that includes both of these phases. The importance of working at the species level to understanding the results of e.i.a. is emphasized.     

Evaluation of the california environmental quality act

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has evolved from a mini-NEPA, first enacted in 1970, into a procedural act that affects the approval process of all large developments in California. In 1990, California local governments produced over 1600 environmental impact reports and 30,000 initial studies under CEQA. Because of its widespread use, CEQA has periodically drawn the attention of the state legislature, most recently in 1993, when over 60 CEQA reform bills were introduced. This paper describes the CEQA process and evaluates its success at meeting its explicit and implicit goals. The research includes a statewide survey of CEQA practice, sent to the planning departments of all 513 local governments in California in 1991. Survey respondents agreed that CEQA helps in evaluating environmental impacts, reducing impacts, informing the public, and coordinating public agency review. It is effective in reducing the environmental impacts of individual projects, but is not as effective in improving environmental quality on an areawide scale. This research concludes that CEQA has led to positive outcomes and is not as deeply flawed as many of its critics claim. Still, CEQA as currently designed may not be the optimal vehicle for ensuring environmental quality.     

Conflicting energy and environmental policies: The portsmouth oil refinery

This case study presents the series of decision-making processes surrounding a current environmental issue—the Portsmouth oil refinery in Virginia. Crude oil must be refined before it can be used as fuel. Additionally, some oil must be desulfurized for use other than as gasoline. In 1977, the nation imported about one million barrels of oil a day. Although the US Department of Energy has emphasized the critical need for greater east coast refinery capability, the east coast is to supply only 25% of its refined oil needs. In the same year, the east coast met its demands for petroleum products from three sources: (a) refinery production, 22.7%, (b) product imports, 28.0%, and (c) products from the Gulf Coast, 49.3%.¹ The energy program after the Arab oil embargo has an objective of encouraging the construction of oil refineries and petrochemical plants in the United States rather than abroad. The tariff is higher on imports of refined oil products than of crude oil, and new refineries are allowed to import a large proportion of their requirements tarifffree.The US federal government does not directly regulate the locations for oil refineries or methods of desulfurization. The oil import program, however, does influence decisions concerning location of desulfurization facilities and refineries, and air and water pollution standards affect methods of refining, besides making desulfurization necessary.The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Department of Defense.     

An environmental assessment of food supply chains: a case study on dessert apples

The contemporary food system provides consumers with convenience, extensive choice, and the year-round availability of fresh produce. In this paper these achievements are recognized within the context of the associated environmental impacts. While many analyses have considered the energy and material efficiency of various options for food production and packaging, very few studies have investigated the environmental impacts of the transport components of food supply chains. This is surprising, given that the global sourcing of food produce, centralized distribution systems, and shopping by car have become prevalent in recent decades and have contributed to an increase in the distance between producer and consumer or “food miles.” In a case study the transport energy consumption is calculated for all possible ways in which dessert apples can be supplied to the UK consumer. The aim is to assess the environmental performance of the predominant fresh produce supply chains and to investigate claims that localized systems are more environmentally efficient. The main criteria used to compare the environmental efficiency in alternative food supply chains are the transport-related fossil-fuel energy consumption and associated carbon dioxide emissions. Analysis of the empirical data shows that transportation is now responsible for a considerable fraction of the total energy consumption in the life cycle of fresh apples, and in most cases exceeds the energy consumed in commercial apple cultivation. By developing local production and marketing systems for fresh products, transport demand can be reduced and many of the environmental impacts associated with existing supply chains can be avoided. The results of the study are then discussed in relation to the wider issues of transport policy, international trade, food security, and product-related environmental information for consumers.     

Enforcement of mitigation measures resulting from environmental impact assessment

Until recently, relatively little attention has been paid to the problem of enforcing mitigation measures identified in environmental impact assessment. Present or proposed enforcement systems in the USA, New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia are described and discussed. Although the best enforcement system would depend on the local social, political, and legal systems, five universally desirable features are identified. First, a comprehensive coordinated monitoring and reassessment system is needed. Second, the agencies concerned must have adequate resources to do the work and incentives to carry it out well. Third, there must be the necessary legal powers. Fourth, provision must be made for changing the conditions based on experience. And fifth, the system should be equally effective against private companies and public authorities.     

An approach to integrate impact scoping with environmental impact assessment

Impact scoping is the process of identifying important issues of a proposal and focusing the environmental impact assessment (EIA) on the high-priority issues. Although impact scoping in one form or another has been inherent to EIA for some time, documentation of its development and discussion of refinements to impact scoping processes have not been forthcoming. This article traces the development of impact scoping through time and highlights the need for such processes in EIA. A focused environmental assessment (FEA) approach to impact scoping that is suitable for implementation in an EIA is presented here and advantages of its use are delineated. FEA is a three-staged process that encourages impact scoping through progressive steps including impact identification, assessment and management planning. FEA combines a suite of EIA methods including: issues matrices, impact hypotheses, valued ecosystem components, and stakeholder participation sessions to effectively integrate impact scoping with EIA.     

Designing of an environmental assessment algorithm for surface mining projects

This paper depicts the method used to quantify the environmental impact of mining activities in surface mine projects. The affected environment was broken down into thirteen components, such as Human health and immunity, Surface water, Air quality, etc. The effect of twenty impacting factors from the mining and milling activities was then calculated for each Environmental Component. Environmental assessments are often performed by using matrix methods in which one dimension of the matrix is the “Impacting Factor” and the other one is the “Environmental Components”. For the presented matrix method, each Impacting Factor was first given a magnitude between −10 and 10. These factors are used to set up a matrix named Impacting Factor Matrix, whose elements represent the Impacting Factor values. The effects of each Impacting Factor on each Environmental Component were then quantified by multiplying the Impacting Factor Matrix by Weighting Factor Matrix. The elements of the weighting factors matrix reflect the effects of each Impacting Factor on each Environmental Component. The outlined method was originally developed for a mining and milling operation in Iran, but it can successfully be used for mining ventures and more general industrial activities in other countries in accordance to their environmental regulations and laws.     

Application of life-cycle assessment to type III environmental declarations

The objective of this research is to develop a desirable type III environmental declaration format for the industrial consumer. A total of five different scenarios were chosen for the presentation of life-cycle assessment results in a format that meets the requirements of a type III environmental declaration. Life-cycle assessment of an electronic component was performed for this purpose. Environmentally significant impact categories and input/output items of a product system derived from the life-cycle assessment are presented in this format. Presenting these information concisely in a standardized format would accelerate the communication of environmental aspects of materials and components in a product supply chain. Thus the type III environmental declaration can be a useful instrument for the manufacturing of an ecoproduct.     

An ecological approach to environmental impact assessment

Carbon cycling analysis is presented as a means for assessing anthropogenic perturbations in an ecosystem. Data from oligotrophic, eutrophic, and dystrophic (bog) lakes are used to show general trends in the lacustrine carbon cycle. The oligotrophic lake is an unstressed system and the eutrophic lake is under nutrient enrichment with high algal standing crops and productivity. The bog lake is a pH-stressed environment that is primarily a grazing ecosystem. It is hoped that a more effective environmental impact assessment will result from the use of carbon cycling as a unifying concept in ecosystem analysis.     

Sustainable construction--the role of environmental assessment tools

Construction has been accused of causing environmental problems ranging from excessive consumption of global resources both in terms of construction and building operation to the pollution of the surrounding environment, and research on green building design and using building materials to minimise environmental impact is already underway. However, relying on the design of a project to achieve the goal of sustainable development, or to minimise impacts through appropriate management on site, is not sufficient to handle the current problem. The aim for sustainability assessment goes even further than at the design stage of a project to consider its importance at an early stage, before any detailed design or even before a commitment is made to go ahead with a development. However, little or no concern has been given to the importance of selecting more environmentally friendly designs during the project appraisal stage; the stage when environmental matters are best incorporated. The main objectives of this paper are to examine the development, role and limitations of current environmental building assessment methods in ascertaining building sustainability used in different countries which leads to discuss the concept of developing a. sustainability model for project appraisal based on a multi-dimensional approach, that will allow alternatives to be ranked is discussed in detail in the paper.     

Learning about knowledge management for improving environmental impact assessment in a government agency: the Western Australian experience

How does knowledge management (KM) by a government agency responsible for environmental impact assessment (EIA) potentially contribute to better environmental assessment and management practice? Staff members at government agencies in charge of the EIA process are knowledge workers who perform judgement-oriented tasks highly reliant on individual expertise, but also grounded on the agency’s knowledge accumulated over the years. Part of an agency’s knowledge can be codified and stored in an organizational memory, but is subject to decay or loss if not properly managed. The EIA agency operating in Western Australia was used as a case study. Its KM initiatives were reviewed, knowledge repositories were identified and staff surveyed to gauge the utilisation and effectiveness of such repositories in enabling them to perform EIA tasks.     

Ecosystem approaches to environmental quality assessment

Environmental quality assessment has to focus more on the quality of whole ecosystems, instead of focusing on the direct effects of a specific stressor, because of a more integrated environmetal policy approach. Yet, how can the ecosystem quality be measured? Partly this is a normative question, a question of what is considered good and bad. At the same time, it is a scientific question, dealing with the problem of low the state of a system as complex as an ecosystem could be measured. Measuring all abiotic and biotic components, not to mention their many relationships, is not feasible. In this article we review several approaches dealing with this scientific question. Three approaches are distinguished; they differ in type of variable set and ecosystem model used. As a result of this, the information about the state of the ecosystem differs: ultimate breadth, comprising information about the whole ecosystem, is at the expense of detail, while ultimate detail is at the expense of breadth. We discuss whether the resultant quality assessments differ in character and are therefore suitable to answer different policy questions.     

Natural environmental impact assessment: A rational approach

A method is presented which combines environmental indices and estimates of inputs from various land uses to aid in environmental impact assessments. Unweighted pair/group cluster analyses are used to obtain relationships between easily observable environmental indices, such as vegetation types, soils, and geology, based on their mutual recurrence. These relationships are shown by using an ordination technique which shows the nature of complex impacts on a natural system. Results are used to develop anenvironmental effects sequence diagram based on known scientific and engineering principles and observed natural relationships. The diagram may be used in conjunction with land use data to estimate the possible magnitude of impacts on the pre-existing system which may result from such land use. Several examples are developed which quantify inputs from various land uses and which compare them with environmental inputs including point source and non-point source liquid and atmospheric emmissions, land modifications, and resource consumption. Known average values are used and a separate comparison is made in describing the vast differences between the project phases of construction versus longterm operation. A hypothetical environmental impact assessment is given for a small residential development in Chambers County, Texas, U.S. of A.