Environmental Impact Assessment

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is one of the most important tools employed in contemporary environmental management. Presenting the component activities of EIA within a coherent methodological framework, Environmental Impact Assessment: A Methodological Approach provides students and practitioners alike with a rigorous grounding in EIA theory, including biophysical, social, strategic and cumulative assessment activities, and examines the crucial role, and limitations, of the science of EIA. Deliberately designed to be relevant world-wide, the author focuses on the common skills and generic aspects of EIA that underpin all impact assessment work, independent of country or jurisdiction, such as screening and scoping, impact identification, public involvement, prediction and monitoring, evaluation, and quality control. The variety of approaches are identified along with their associated strengths and weaknesses, enabling potential, new and experienced practitioners to make informed choices and to improve their working practices through a better understanding of EIA activity. The ultimate aim of this book is to move from the notion of EIA as a technical procedure towards a concept of EIA as a particular form of problem-solving with varied methodological requirements.

Richard Morgan is a Senior Lecturer in Geography at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.

1. The aims and context of environmental impact assessment. 2. The principles of EIA. 3. Methodology, science and EIA. 4. A methodological framework for EIA. 5. Screening and scoping: principles and approaches. 6. Impact identification. 7. Public involvement in EIA. 8. Prediction and monitoring. 9. Evaluation 1: introduction, and monetary methods. 10. Evaluation 2: non-monetary, and socio-scientific methods. 11. Quality control: reviewing EIAs. 12. Synthesis and conclusions.