4.0 Introduction To Environment Impact Assessment (EIA)

ENVIRONMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT (EIA)
4.0 Introduction to Environment Impact

Assessment (EIA)
 EIA is a process that helps to identify the possible
environmental effects of a proposed activity and how those
impacts can be mitigated (reduced).
 It is an interdisciplinary and multistep procedure to ensure that
environmental considerations are included in decisions regarding
projects that may impact the environment.
 It Inform decision-makers and the public of the environmental
consequences of implementing a proposed project.
 The EIA document itself is a technical tool that identifies,
4.2 Benefits of the EIA process
• Potentially screens out environmentally-unsound projects

• Proposes modified designs to reduce environmental impacts
• Identifies feasible alternatives
• Predicts significant adverse impacts
• Identifies mitigation measures to reduce, offset, or eliminate major impacts
• Engages and informs potentially affected communities and individuals
• Influences decision-making and the development of terms and conditions
4.3 Principles of EIA
Purposive: EIA should meet its aims of informing decision making and ensuring an
appropriate level of environmental protection and human health.
Focused: EIA should concentrate on significant environmental effects, taking into account
the issues that matter.
Adaptive: EIA should be adjusted to the realities, issues and circumstances of the
proposals under review.
Participative: EIA should provide appropriate opportunities to inform and involve the
interested and affected publics, and their inputs and concerns should be addressed
explicitly (clearly).
Transparent: EIA should be a clear, easily understood and open process, with early
notification procedure, access to documentation, and a public record of decisions
taken and reasons for them.
Rigorous: EIA should apply the best practicable methodologies to address the impacts
and issues being investigated.
Principles of EIA Continuation
Practical: EIA should identify measures for impact mitigation that work and can
be implemented
Credible: EIA should be carried out with professionalism, rigor, fairness,
objectivity, impartiality and balance.
Efficient: EIA should impose the minimum cost burden on proponents consistent
with meeting process requirements and objectives .

4.4 Stages in project cycle
 The project life cycle is the standard process by which teams achieve project
success or the path a project takes from the beginning to its end .The formal
stages of a project are as follows:
 Initiation/ Conceptualization: project team formation, project chartering, and
kick-off. This is where the project’s value and feasibility are measured. Feasibility
study is an evaluation of the project’s goals, timeline and costs to determine if
the project should be executed. It balances the requirements of the project with
available resources to see if pursuing the project makes sense. Teams abandon
proposed projects that are labelled unprofitable and/or unfeasible.
 Planning: gives guidance for obtaining resources, acquiring financing and
procuring required materials; gives the team direction for producing quality
outputs, handling risk, creating acceptance, communicating benefits to
stakeholders and managing suppliers; also prepares teams for the obstacles they
might encounter over the course of the project, and helps them understand the
cost, scope and timeframe of the project.
Stages in project cycle Continuation
• Execution/Implementation: performing the actual work required by the project

definition and scope. Execution is all about building deliverables that satisfy the
customer.
• Monitoring and control: the actual management, reporting, and control of the
resources and budgets during the execution phase. It guarantees delivery of
what was promised.
• Project closure/termination: delivery of the project, assessment of lessons
learned, adjournment of the project team. It allows the team to evaluate and
document the project and move on the next one, using previous project mistakes
and successes to build stronger processes and more successful teams .
4.5 The EIA process
• Initial Environmental Examination (lEE): IEE is carried out to determine whether

potentially adverse environmental effects are significant or whether mitigation
measures can be adopted to reduce or eliminate these adverse effects. When an
IEE is able to provide a definite solution to environmental problems, an EIA is not
necessary.
• Environmental Impact Studies (EIS): It is simply a detailed EIA. It is a procedure
used to examine the environmental consequences or impacts, both beneficial
and adverse, of a proposed development project and to ensure that these effects
are taken into account in project design.
The EIA process Continuation
• Screening: Screening is done to determine whether or not a proposal should be

subject to EIA and, if so, at what level of detail. The output of the screening
process is often a document called an Initial Environmental Examination or
Evaluation.
• Scoping: Scoping is an ongoing exercise throughout the course of the project done
to:
 Identify concerns and issues for consideration in an EIA; Ensure a relevant EIA;
Enable those responsible for an EIA study to properly brief the study team on the
alternatives and on impacts to be considered at different levels of analysis;
Determine the assessment methods to be used ; Identify all affected interests ;
Provide an opportunity for public involvement in determining the factors to be
assessed, and facilitate early agreement on contentious issues; Save time and
money; Establish terms of reference (TOR) for EIA study
• The following environmental tools can be used in the scoping exercise: Checklists
(standard lists of the types of impacts associated with a particular type of
project), Matrices (identify interactions between various project actions and
environmental parameters and components), Networks (are cause effect flow
diagrams used to help in tracing the web relationships that exist between
different activities associated with action and environmental system with which
they interact), and Consultations(with decision-makers, affected communities,
environmental interest groups to ensure that all potential impacts are detected).
• Baseline data collection: refers to the collection of background information on the biophysical,
social and economic settings proposed project area done to:
 To provide a description of the current status and trends of environmental factors (e.g., air
pollutant concentrations) of the host area against which predicted changes can be compared
and evaluated in terms of significance, and
 To provide a means of detecting actual change by monitoring once a project has been initiated
• Impact analysis and prediction: involves predicting both quantitatively and qualitatively the
magnitude of a development likely impacts and evaluating their significance based on the
available environmental baseline of the project area. considers the magnitude, extent,
duration significance of the impact .

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ENVIRONMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT (EIA)

4.0 Introduction to Environment Impact

• Potentially screens out environmentally-unsound projects

with meeting process requirements and objectives .

• Execution/Implementation: performing the actual work required by the project

• Initial Environmental Examination (lEE): IEE is carried out to determine whether

• Screening: Screening is done to determine whether or not a proposal should be

duration significance of the impact .

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