The roles of EIA in the decision-making process

Leknes, Einar

doi:10.1016/s0195-9255(00)00081-0

Cited by 62 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…12 For these reasons, many authors substitute the term bounded rationality (e.g., Leknes 2001;Sheate 2010).…”

Section: Logical Connections Among Cea's Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cumulative effects assessment: theoretical underpinnings and big problems

Jones

2016

Environ. Rev.

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Cumulative effects assessment (CEA) is a sub-discipline of environmental impact assessment that is concerned with appraising the collective effects of human activities and natural processes on the environment. Aspirations for CEA have been expressed by many authors since 1969, when the foundation of environmental appraisal was laid by the US National Environmental Policy Act. This paper's purposes are (i) to review aspirations for CEA, relative to current practice; and (ii) to fully explain and critique the logic that connects CEA's operational steps and underlying philosophies. A literature review supports the following statements: Some conceptualizations emphasize the delivery of information to support decision making as the key purpose of CEA; others deem collaboration, debate, and learning as most important. Consensus on CEA's operational steps has been reached, but each step requires practitioners to make analytical decisions (e.g., about the scope of issues to include or the time horizon to consider) and objective rules for how to approach those decisions are lacking. Numerical methods for assessing cumulative effects are largely available, meaning that CEA's biggest problems are not scientific. CEA cannot succeed without substantive public engagement, monitoring, and adaptive management. CEA is best undertaken regionally, rather than project-byproject. CEA and planning are complementary, and should be merged. In its most enlightened form, CEA is a useful tool for ensuring that human undertakings ultimately conform to Earth's finite biosphere, but current practice falls short of the ideal, and CEA's logical derivation is not entirely sound. As regards CEA's big problems, sustainability has not been defined clearly enough to make criteria for judging the significance of cumulative effects indisputable; legal, regulatory, and institutional frameworks are poorly aligned for CEA; and objective criteria for judging the adequacy of CEA's scope, scale, and thresholds do not exist, which makes the question of how to provide general guidance to practitioners intractable. Recommendations call for sustainability goals to be clearly expressed as measurable targets. Furthermore, precaution in human enterprise should be exercised by avoiding, minimizing, restoring, and offsetting negative cumulative effects. CEA can assist by quantifying and optimizing trade-offs.Key words: environmental impact assessment, planning, environmental management, sustainability, conceptual model, precautionary principle.Résumé : L'évaluation des effets cumulatifs (EEC) est une sous-discipline de l'évaluation de l'impact sur l'environnement qui porte sur l'évaluation des effets collectifs des activités humaines et des processus naturels sur l'environnement. De nombreux auteurs ont exprimé leurs aspirations quant à l'EEC depuis 1969, le moment où les fondements de l'évaluation environnementale ont été jetés par le « National Environmental Policy Act » aux États-Unis. Les buts de cette étude sont (i) d'examiner les aspirations quant à...

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“…12 For these reasons, many authors substitute the term bounded rationality (e.g., Leknes 2001;Sheate 2010).…”

Section: Logical Connections Among Cea's Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cumulative effects assessment: theoretical underpinnings and big problems

Jones

2016

Environ. Rev.

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“…However, a wealth of literature has identified that this rational role for environmental assessment is not a true reflection of the nature of decision making (see, for example, Bekker et al, 2004;Bond, 2003;Cashmore, 2004;Flyvbjerg, 1998;Lawrence, 2000;Leknes, 2001;Owens et al, 2004;Richardson, 2005), although it has continued to provide the basis for methodological development of the tool, and by extension the forms of assessment (such as SEA and SA) that have evolved from it.…”

Section: "…Development That Meets the Needs Of Current Generations Wimentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-evaluating Sustainability Assessment: Aligning the vision and the practice

Bond

Morrison‐Saunders

2011

Environmental Impact Assessment Review

200

133

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Sustainable Development is the core goal of the expanding field of Sustainability Assessment (SA). However, we find that three key areas of debate in relation to SA practice in England and Western Australia can be classified as policy controversies. Through literature review and analysis of documentary evidence we consider the problem of reductionism (breaking down complex processes to simple terms or component parts) as opposed to holism (considering systems as wholes); the issue of contested understandings of the meaning of sustainability (and of the purpose of SA); and the definition of 'inter-generational' in the context of sustainable development and how this is reflected in the timescales considered in SA. We argue that SA practice is based on particular framings of the policy controversies and that the critical role of SA in facilitating deliberation over these controversies needs to be recognised if there is to be a move towards a new deliberative sustainability discourse which can accommodate these different framings.

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“…This view was predicated on the rational behaviour of stakeholders and, in particular, decision makers. More and more authors argue that decision-making is not rational and that EIA has considerably more roles than simply information provision (see, for example, Lawrence, 2000;Leknes, 2001;Bond, 2003;Bekker et al, 2004;Cashmore, 2004;Owens et al, 2004). Bartlett and Kurian (1999) detail six separate models explaining the role of EIA in decisionmaking, in which the information processing (rational) model is just one end of the spectrum of influence; other models include the symbolic politics model, the political economy model, the organisational politics model, the pluralist politics model and the institutionalist model.…”

Section: Translating Into Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Impact mitigation in environmental impact assessment: paper promises or the basis of consent conditions?

Tinker

Cobb

Bond

et al. 2005

Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal

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This study analysed 40 planning applications in the East of England to investigate the practice of translating paper recommendations in the environmental statement (ES) into legal conditions and obligations. A high proportion (50%) of suggested mitigation measures were not translated into planning conditions or obligations. However, a significant number of additional conditions or obligations, not directly based on the ES, were imposed on developers. The research suggests a mismatch between the practice of those producing ESs and the expectations of planning authorities, leading to inefficiency and, possibly, emasculation of environmental impact assessment through a failure to implement mitigation. Several recommendations are made to increase the effectiveness of the implementation and integration of mitigation measures.

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The roles of EIA in the decision-making process

Cited by 62 publications

References 6 publications

Cumulative effects assessment: theoretical underpinnings and big problems

Cumulative effects assessment: theoretical underpinnings and big problems

Re-evaluating Sustainability Assessment: Aligning the vision and the practice

Impact mitigation in environmental impact assessment: paper promises or the basis of consent conditions?

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