Environmental impact assessment: National approaches and international needs

Abstract

This paper examines the spread and development of 'environmental impact assessment' (EIA) since the enactment of the U.S. Environmental Policy Act on January 1, 1970, which established for the first time under any jurisdiction the formal requirement that an EIA be made and that an 'environmental impact statement' (EIS) be filed prior to implementation of certain major development projects.The paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, we briefly review the forms of EIA introduced in the western industrial countries and contrast these with developments in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, and in the Third World. The approaches to EIA adopted by five countries - the United States, Australia, Canada, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Soviet Union - are used to illustrate the types of national approaches that have been followed. In the second part of the paper, we use some questions raised by impact assessments as codified in legislation or regulations at the national level to highlight some of the limitations of impact assessment. Finally, we turn to international impact assessments and describe the modest progress made to date. Key impediments to the development of appropriate conceptual and institutional frameworks and methodologies for international EIAs are noted.In conclusion, we offer some suggestions about needed actions at both the national and international levels.

Economic aspects of international air pollution control policies

“…Burton et al 1 defined two broad categories of national approaches to environmental policies-countries using formal, explicit procedures and countries using informal, implicit procedures. The first category includes the United States and countries that use variations of the US model in their national control policies (Australia, Canada, The Netherlands and some developing countries).…”

“…Clearly, different countries have different approaches to the mitigation of air pollution, and it has been noted that broad categories of national air pollution control policies can be defined that are related to national economic systems. 1 Although this categorization is by no means unique, it is appropriate for our analysis since it relates the policy and economic aspects of air pollution control and allows us to characterize the major features of various pollution control policies using a few typical case studies. The three case studies considered here include the United States (free-market economy), France (mixed economy), and Poland (centrally planned economy).…”

Comparative Analysis of Hazardous Waste Policy Formulation Efforts Among West European Countries

“…'ii2s ihat have greater i''dividual wealth may tend to be better orgcnfzed snd, hence, inore Hksly to produce advanced policy approaches. "Explanation of column headings: F1 = Resource factor total F2 = Administrative-Organizational factor total F3 = Technoiogicai factor total T = factor total D= dependent variable (i.e., presence of hazardous waste law) 1 = GNP per capita (World Bank, 1983) 2= Population mid-1981(Worid Bank, 1983 3= Environmental Concern (based on Commission of European Communities 1982 survey) 4= Environmentai Impact Assessment Procedure (Burton, 1983 andOECD, 1979 reports) 5= Formal National Environmental Agency 6 = Pre-1979 General Environmental Law 7 = Pre-1979 Waste Law 8 = Percent of Industrial Activity in Gross Domestic Product (United Nations, 1983) 9= Annual Total Hazardous Waste Generation (OECD, 1984, unpub-lished study) 10= Per Capita Hazardous Waste Generation Key: + = greater than mean value for variable -= less than mean value for variable n= not available and not applicable for Luxemburg due to small population size reflected in the lack of a formal hazardous waste management law. Fortunately, as mentioned earlier, some of the variance between policy approaches adopted by individual countries is being reduced through the development of uniform hazardous waste management approaches and the concerted efforts of supranationa!…”

Current Global Health Impact Assessment Practice

“…Increasing recognition of the manifold implications of human-induced policies, plans, programmes, or projects on the environment led to the development of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) approach as an important component of environmental management in the 1960s [1,2]. With the enactment of a revolutionary piece of legislation, namely the National Environmental Policy Act, promulgated in 1969, the United States of America became the first country that established a comprehensive legal basis for EIA.…”