Aquatic Pollution and Coastal Management

Unit 12 : Environmental impact assessment

12.4.Objectives of EIA
The main objective of EIA should be to provide to the decision makers a complete account of the implications of the proposed action/development before a final decision is made.
The concept of EIA is to study the existing conditions, predict or identify the effects of the proposed activity on the environments.

What is EIA?
EIA is a management tool. The formal document required by the law or regulation may be called EIA/ environmental impact statement / an environmental assessment. It is a management information process that continuously gathers, analysis, interprets and presents facts and knowledge for the decision makers. Although EIA will report the findings and recommendations, it does not make decisions, because the balancing of environmental effects with other consequences of development is a political process.
It describes present environmental conditions, the technology to be used and then predicts the consequences with and without the project. EIA finds ways to reduce unacceptable impacts and evaluate the most cost effective mitigation measures.

The EIA Process / Sequence
EIA can be used to describe a general process for identifying and evaluating the effects of proposed development on the environment. It is not suggested that the process described here is followed in all circumstances. Differences in environmental legislative, political and technical circumstances will often require modification to the process to be made. The EIA process has evolved into series of stages.

In general, the EIA process would contain three main parts:

• Environmental appraisal
• Monitoring
• Evaluation

The Environmental Appraisal would consist of 4 key steps.

• Screening
• Preliminary assessment
• Scoping
• Detailed assessment.