The effectiveness of environmental assessment in Flanders: An analysis of practitioner perspectives

Abstract

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Pursuing the Distilled Good Practices to Improve the Quality of Environmental Impact Assessment Reports and Hence Enhance the EIA Effectiveness and Help Address the Concerns of Project Proponents: An Indian Context

“…The terminology of "good practices" [11] is used in this work rather than "best practices", given the philosophy underlined in the quality management system that there is always a scope for further improvements. Good practices in EIA are expected to improve the effectiveness of the EIA, with a simple understanding that "effectiveness" [21] is achieving the predefined objectives of EIA, viz. the extent to which EIA addresses environmental objectives, and incorporates environmental concerns into the development and environmental approval/clearance of projects even though there is no general agreement in the vast literature on the definition of the term "effectiveness" of EIA [22][23][24] .…”

“…The evaluation of EIA quality and EIA effectiveness is beyond the scope of this study. A simple understanding of EIA effectiveness, focusing on the objectives of the different stages of the EIA process [25,26] could aid the analysis of the determinants affecting EIA effectiveness [21] . However, the extent to which good practices lead to improving EIA effectiveness-procedural as well as EIA assessment methods, and quality of EIA reports requires further empirical studies and research under different contexts.…”

“…EIA effectiveness encompasses how specific aspects of EIA get managed for a project, the efficiency of the EIA process as a whole, and the benefits of the EIA [19,37] . The legal requirement appears to be the main explanatory factor for EIA effectiveness in several countries [21] , given that the main parameters explaining the ex-ante effectiveness are hastening the EIA process for decision-making and ex-post effectiveness is the mandatory requirement to con-duct EIA. As a result, EIA is primarily viewed from the legal and procedural angles [38] , rather than how the instrument is used through all the stages with a focus on outcomes [39] to optimize the environmental performance of the project [40] .…”

Meta‐analysis of SEA's effectiveness evaluation criteria: A comparison between the Chinese and international contexts

“…To evaluate the effectiveness of governance mechanism, scholars examine the political agendas of each context (De Montis et al, 2014; Tokarczyk‐Dorociak et al, 2019), the compulsion of SEA (Runhaar et al, 2019), the existence of training and guidance (Therivel & González, 2019), the independence of consultant agencies (van Doren et al, 2012), and the accountability of stakeholders during the SEA process (Acharibasam & Noble, 2014; Fundingsland Tetlow & Hanusch, 2012). For the decision‐making culture, researchers discuss if the responsibility for SEA is assigned to proponents (Runhaar et al, 2019), the transparency of SEA procedure (Acharibasam & Noble, 2014; Chanchitpricha et al, 2019; Hanna & Noble, 2015), and the communication between stakeholders (De Montis et al, 2014; Lyhne et al, 2017). In addition, clearly the criteria of EIA procedurals is to evaluate if there is enough data for assessment (van Doren et al, 2012), if the procedures and techniques are flexible and adaptive (Hanna & Noble, 2015; King & Smith, 2016; Lyhne et al, 2017), if the SEA documents are easy to access (Malvestio & Montaño, 2013), and if the process is understood by stakeholders (Hanna & Noble, 2015).…”

“…This paper subdivided them into four categories according to Arts et al (2012), namely the characteristics of governance mechanism, the decision‐making culture, the course of EIA procedurals, and the characteristics of actors. To evaluate the effectiveness of governance mechanism, scholars examine the political agendas of each context (De Montis et al, 2014; Tokarczyk‐Dorociak et al, 2019), the compulsion of SEA (Runhaar et al, 2019), the existence of training and guidance (Therivel & González, 2019), the independence of consultant agencies (van Doren et al, 2012), and the accountability of stakeholders during the SEA process (Acharibasam & Noble, 2014; Fundingsland Tetlow & Hanusch, 2012). For the decision‐making culture, researchers discuss if the responsibility for SEA is assigned to proponents (Runhaar et al, 2019), the transparency of SEA procedure (Acharibasam & Noble, 2014; Chanchitpricha et al, 2019; Hanna & Noble, 2015), and the communication between stakeholders (De Montis et al, 2014; Lyhne et al, 2017).…”