Effectiveness of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in addressing development-induced disasters: a comparison of the EIA processes of Sri Lanka and New Zealand

Abstract

of a thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. There is an on-going exponential increase in development-induced disasters globally, especially in low and middle-income countries. This upward trend in the occurrence of development-induced disasters challenges sustainable development efforts. It has been generally accepted that instruments such as an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reduce disaster risks of development projects. The Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) for disaster risk reduction promotes using EIAs to address the disaster risk of development projects. Over 65 percent of the countries that have met the HFA progress-reporting obligation in the 2009-2011 reporting cycle, state that disaster risks of development projects are addressed by implementing EIA. However, the claims that EIA processes effectively address disaster risks have yet to be demonstrated empirically. It is clear that successful implementation of EIA processes also depends on the level of governance quality existing in a particular country. It is suggested that a well-conceived EIA process should reflect many of the elements of good governance principles including transparency, sufficient information flows, accountability, and stakeholder participation. Quality governance, therefore, is considered as having a direct bearing on why impact assessments in some countries are performing better than others. AbstractThe influence of governance quality on the effectiveness of EIAs can be addressed by comparing the EIA processes of two or more countries with different levels of governance quality. In this research, the effectiveness of the EIA process in addressing development-induced disasters is evaluated by comparing the EIA processes of Sri Lanka and New Zealand. These two countries have quite different governance quality ratings and, therefore, offer a test of the influence of governance characteristics on EIA processes in addressing disaster risks.iv In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the EIA processes of the above countries, a set of evaluation criteria was identified, mostly from existing literature. Eight criteria were specifically developed for this research. Data for the research were collected from in-depth interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire and focus group discussions with interviewees selected on the basis of their role, knowledge and expertise of the EIA process. Documents from both state and non-state actors relevant to the EIA process were also analyzed. Several recently conducted development projects in each country were used as cases to understand how the legislation is used in practice.It is clear that explicit reference to disaster risk is absent in environmental management policies in both Sri Lanka and New Zealand. Even though the New Zealand EIA process has a higher procedural and contextual effectiveness than Sri Lanka, both countries have lower levels of substantive effectiveness. Neither of the two EIA processes is found to be ef...

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