Environmental Impact Assessment

EIA Trigger

Serious adverse impact of a natural system that will cause damage

Impact that requires an EIA be done

EPBC Act refferal can triggern an EIA

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

Done before decision making

Process of identifying, predicting, and reducing impacts of a project

Can be required at state, commonwealth, level or both

Accounts for economic, social, cultural, and health impacts

Systematic evaluation

No EIA is the same

History of EIAs

1970 → Qld created EIA laws

1970s → Commonwealth EIA laws

1999→ EPBC Act, MNES

EIA steps

1. Screening

2. REF

3. Scoping

4. Investigation and report planning

5. Review

6. Decision

7. Monitoring and Compliance

Guidelines for EIA content

Description of proposed activity

Description of existing environment

Interactions between activity and env

Justification of activity

Mitagations of impacts

Alternatives

Consequences for not doing activity

Screening stage

Proponent has idea

Do we need an EIA?

Planning

Review of Environmental Factors (REF)

Inital environmental investigation

Internal public assessment

For low risk activities

Do we need an EIA? (now with more info)

General public notice

Scoping stage

Identify key issues

How to avoid and mitigate these issues

Public participation

Identify boundary

Investigation and report planning stage

Where impact assessment is done

Fieldwork

Can take a long time

Review stage

EIS goes out for public review

Independant evaluation is done

Decision stage

EIS can be approved (with conditions likely) or denied

Monitoring and compliance stage

Ongoing assessment to make sure project is complying with EMP and to identify unforseen impacts

Must meet and maintain conditions

Notify the department of any breaches

Needs to be continuous (can’t stop and resume)

Public participation

Mandatory in scoping and review stages

Optional in other stages

Early engagement is important

Inform public

Get input

Public representation

EIA vs EIS

EIA → overall process, umbrella

EIS → actual report, legal document output, statuatory

EIA triggers EIS

EIA may require REF or EIS

Environmental Assessment Levels

REF → lower importance, thorough, no public review

PER → med importance, must notify/ advertise to public

EIS → Highest importance, global public notification

Pubic Environmental Review (PER)

Impact Assessable application

Has a public review period → 15 business day notice

For medium teir developiments

Produces Assessment report/ approval

Nathan Dam Project

Dam provided water for cotton

Will pollute GBR

Was approved, minister could only assess direct effects

After this, minister could assess indirect effects in approvals

Toondah Harbor Development

In Moreton Bay Ramsar wetland

Lots of migratory birds

UNEP EIA process

1. Screening (includes REF)

2. Scoping

3. Impact Analysis

4. Mitigation and Impact Management

5. EIA Report

6. Review

7. Decision

8. Implementation and follow up

Mai Po Harbor Development

China

Lots of migratory birds

In Ramsar wetland

Zoned for “wise use”

Planning Act 2016 (Qld)

Informs requests for development application

Public notification for impact assessable developments

Development Assessments → include EIA?

Environmental Protect Act 1994 (Qld)

Relevant for mining

Contains EIS process for Environmental Authorities

After public comment → ammend EIS

State Development and Public Works Organisation Act 1971 (SDPWO) (Qld)

Created coordinated projects for large projects which require EIS

Public comment

Overrides EIA process under Planning Act and EPA

Linked to EPBC through Bilateral Agreement

Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC) (Cth)

Contains 5 EIA procedures for assessing controlled actions (including EIS)

Bilateral Agreement

Federal government can use state EIA to approve at federal level

3 ways of thinking

Gov’t silos →lots of info on our act, doesn’t talk about interaction with other acts

Textbook Style → categories, too simple

Jigsaw approach → ID relevant bits and it comes together

How to read legislation

1. Find relevant law, understand relevant gov’t structure

2. Skim read the act

3. Interpret relevant part, read in context, cross reference definitions

4. Search for relevant court decisions

Risk assessments in EIAs

Starts in scoping and screening → runs through entire EIA

What can go wrong? How likely? Consequences? How to mitigate?

Gets updated as you go

Can use GIS

Risk

Likelihood, consequences, hazard

Effect of uncertainty on objectives

Balance with payoff (benefit must outway risk)

Skunk near you

Uranium mine → drinking water contamination, env impacts

Hazard

Thing that can cause harm

Skunk behind glass

Uranium mine → injury, spillage, exposure

Human induced or natural

Risk matrix

Components of risk assessment

Risk formulation → context
Risk analysis → characterise hazards

Risk evalutation → severit and mitigation

Communication → graph or statement

Risk management → recommendations

Risk formulation

Specific

Define sources

Define endpoint receptors
Explain relationship

Endpoint receptors

Chemical or physical entities attected

Plants are endpoint receptors for fire

Bugs are endpoint receptor for insecticide

Conceptual models

Show links and pathways for factors

Stessors, source, receptor, effect

Characterising hazard

Frequency/ probability of occurence

Intensity/ severity

Duration/ time is lasts

Extent/ spatially confined or dispersed

Risk analysis

Links hazard to likelihood and consequence

Quantitative → data driven

Qualititative → descriptive, broad risk ID

Semi-quantitative → cause-effect models

Leeching

Soaks down from surface

Recharges freshwater

Perculation

Comes up from ground

Salt, saltlands

Risk management

Must try to mitigate and reduce likelihood

Reduce impacts through contingency plan

Elimintate → remove target from hazard

Variability Uncertainty

Effect of change on a system

Chance of flood in a natural system

Measured with frequencies or probability

Always there

Weather

Epistemic Uncertainty

Knowledege is imcomplete

Can it be observed to learn

Incomplete data

Coastal Zone management in Woollongong

Damage to assets from sea level rise

Beach will recede

Hurt infrastructure

Incorporate risk assessment guidlines

Chile Copper Pipeline

Leaked into river, health impacts

Landslides, engineering, and vandalism risks

Risk evaluation said low risk (low likelihood and hazard)

Risk assessment positives

Incorporate uncertainties

Identifies threats and endpoints

Communicates quanititative comparisons → risk matrix

Risk assessment negatives

Linkage to decisions and stakeholders

Relies on subjective info

High data requirements

Socio-economic Impact Assessment (SEIA)

How project affects people, communities, and economic activity

Money and people generating money (econ + social interconnected)

Money, labour, profits, down payments,

Specialised assessment → can use in EIA

Mine town → creates community, needs schools, hospitals

Pop change, social (people leavin), econ (losing biz and workers)

Why do an SEIA?

Determine the consequences to money and people

Cost and benefit analysis

Provide evidence for decision making and policy

Econmic and social impacts are interconnected

SEIA boundary

What could change? → pos/neg, can you pay them, influx of people

Who could get affected? → Those who move to mining town, families

What to do about it? → Cost and benefits, mitigate effects

Steps for SEIA

1. Scoping →boundaries, budget needed

2. Profile baseline conditions → whats in boundary, responsibilities

3. Predicting impacts → what will change look like

4. Identify mitigation → how to manage

5. Evaluate significance → materiality, list

6. Apply mitgation and monitor → what actually happens

Valued Socio-Economic Components (VSECs)

Social and economic conditions important to people and could be affected by project

Fisheries → fishery access, income

Forest → hunting, cultural heritage

Agr → farm income, farm size

Infrastructure → housing, employment

Socio-Economic Indicators

Measurable characteristics that help understand the social and economic conditions around a project

Once you do a project, these things will change

Need to decide first → what we need to measure

Ask what has changed? Who? Where? What impacts?

Choose only relevant indicators

Can look at framework

Marine Protected Area (MPA)

Can’t fish here

Will impact fishing communities → short term economic loss

Will improve fish pop and biodiversity → more fish to surrounding areas (spillover effect0

Long term benefit

Marine Protected Area SEIA scoping

Boundary → Marine Park

Impacts → income, employability (fisherman and tourism affected)

Less income affects wider community

Possible solution for boundary → find other income for family

Look for missing information

Defines what we need to investigate

Marine Park baseline

Established evidence needed to assess future change

Collect current/ historical info (for trends)

Current fishing activities

Gives reference point for magnitude of change

Past data helps ID trends

Marine Park predicting impacts

Goal is to determine waht could change

Collect additional evidence

Qualitative/ Quantitative

Primary/ Secondary

Direct effects → income (econ), family activities (social)

Indirect effects → less household spending in local economy

Primary Evidence

New data created for EIA

Survey, interview, observation, experiment

May have bias

Time consuming and costly

Secondary Evidence

Data already exists

Lit review, gov’t database

May be collected for different reason

May be outdated

Triangulating evidence

Using different sources of data

Can cross-check to identify gaps, errors

Timing bias

Data collected in the wrong season may miss important activities

Surveying fishes in off season

Data limitations

Exisiting data may be outdated, at wrong spatial scale, or collected for other purpose

Sampling and selection bias

Who participates matters

May overrespresent or miss groups

Marine Park identifying mitigation

Reducing specific impacts

Help locals get income from other sources

Support access to other fishing spots

Transition support

Economic Impact Assessment

Profits - costs for a project

$ value

Investments, cost of labour, cost of mitigation

From company perspective

Compare alternatives

Economic Impact Assessment methods

Cost benefit analysis

Multi-criteria analysis

Model economic effects

Cost-benefit analysis

Assess all costs and benefits of project in $

Translates impacts into monetary value

Net benefits = Total benefits - total costs

Economic Impact Assessment limitations

Some things are hard to explain as $

Uncertainty

Discount rate

Equity → not all will benefit equally

Bias

Time and experise → costs $

Why manage natural resources?

They’re finite

Limit consumption

Equitable distribution

Preventing overexplotation

Natural Systems

Dynamic, complex and uncertain

Rarely have perfect info

Often time and money constraints

Often competing stakeholder objectives

Adaptive Environmental Management (AEM)

Learn as you go and change responsibly

Originated in 1970s

Needs monitoring → evaluate, learn and adjust

Not trial and error, based on science and start with info

Feedback loop: monitor → evaluate → adjust → monitor

Goal is better management through better understaning

When to use Adaptive Environmental Management

When system is dynamic

When plan is flexible

When outcomes are uncertain

When monitoring is possible

When future decisions can change

Where does Adaptive Environmental Management go in an EIA?

Phase 1: Implementation → in Mitigation and Impact Management

Phase 2: Follow-up → after approval

Plan it before approval

EIA predicts, AEM tests predictions and responds

Designing an Adaptive Environmental Management plan

1. Get info

2. System → see whole picture

3. Plan → hypothesis, Phase 1

4. Implement

5. Monitoring

Phase 1 of Adaptive Environmental Management

Deliberative

Set up decision problem

Establish what we are trying to do and how we think system works

Establish stakeholders, objectives, alternative, models, monitoring

Before intervention

Phase 2 of Adaptive Environmental Management

Manage and learn

Understanding evolves through evidence

Decide → implement → monitor → assess → update → adapt

Repeat cycle

What does Adaptive Environmental Management ask?

What happened?

Why?

Was it predicted?

What did we learn?

What do next?

Technical Learning Loop

Fix the immediate problem

Are our management actions working?

Do we need to change the action?

IE Fix wall

Social/ Institutional Learing Loop

Question the systems that produced the action

Are we managing the right problem in the right way

Bigger picture

Cater to the change in the rest of the system

IE shift entire wall project

Double-Loop learning

Using both technical learning and social/ instituional loops together

Improve both the intervention and the decision system

Problems with Adaptive Environmental Management

Expensive → need to monitor for awhile, upfront costs

Working with uncertainty → risk

Short-term management priorities (not good for short term projs)

Needs stakeholder involvement

Need insititutional support → slow process

Theory is good → implementation bas

May be confused with monitoring

Process barrier for Adaptive Environmental Management

Most common

Bad objectives

Weak monitoring

Unclear responsibilities

Lack of funding

Don’t understand adaptive environmental management

Bad stakeholder involvement

Ecosystem barrier for Adaptive Environmental Management

Less common problem

Lack of original knowledge

Complexity

Unexpected events → fires, floods

Scale mismatch

Goverance barrier for Adaptive Environmental Management

Inflexible legislation

Political constraints

Institutional structure

Accountability confusion

Climate change and Adaptive Environmental Management

System changing while we are learning about it

Need to define boundaries to not get overwhelmed

What does good Adaptive Environmental Management need?

Structure and resources

Collaboration → stakeholder engagement

Learning

Legal and institutional capacity

Alabama Hydropower Damn

Trying to balance hydropower, fish biodiversity and recreation

Considered alternatives and made predictions

Created damn → chose a flowpath

Monitored

Adapted → annual updating of info as they monitor

When to NOT use Adaptive Environmental Management

When there’s low uncertainty

When you can’t monitor

When management can’t change

When costs excede potential learning benefits

Biodiveristy lag effects

Once you break a threshold, species can slowly degrade

Period of time until extinction

Environmental Management Plan (EMP)

Details how env management will be implemented before and after the project

Avoid, reduce, offset

Dynamic and adaptive to allow for future knowledge and tech

Part of EIS

Look at future and how to mitigate

Statement of Environmental Effects (SEE)

Proposals with lower env impact

Physical environmental changes

Alter landscape, air, water bodies, dust

Cumulative impacts

Combined effects of multiple projects occuring over time

Often overlooked

In Impact Prediction and Assessment stage

Sunscreen + waste + fertiliser on GBR

Transboundary impacts

Affect neighboring regions or countries

Requires cooperation

Limitation of EIS

Changes of law

Need good data (reliable, no gaps)

FIFO

Can harm regional towns

No new job creation

Property price increases

South Africa Case Study

Fisheries were present, migration route for whales

Shell did EIA for oil exploration→ was overturned

Project was approved before EIA was done

Issues with EIA and public participation

Shell created negative reputation for themselves and other developers

Issues with Shell’s EIA in South Africa

No study on impacts of disasters on community → spills and blowouts

Ignored coastal protection laws

Climate change impacts not properly assessed → sea level rise

No cross boundary assessment → illegal nationally and internationally

Public wasn’t shown key emergency plans (spill management plans) **

Reasons Shell’s EIA was overturned in South Africa

Procedural shortcomings

Lack of public engagement

Insufficient env evaluation

Reinforcement of env law

Critiques for Shells’s EIA in South Africa

Data gaps

Marine life overlooked

Transparency concerns

Purpose for EIA

Prevent env harm

Promote sustainable development