The EIA Techniques and Procedures
Countries experiencing frequent natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, and massive tornadoes, have fully embraced application of EIA as one of their risk management programs. Some of the se countries include; India, China and most of the South American states. Within the scope of EIA there are several procedures that are significant to the successful delivery of an EIA. The program can be thought of as a data management process with three components.
First, the information necessary for a specific decision should be identified and gathered. Secondly, changes in environmental parameters resulting from the proposed project must be forecast and compared with the situation without the proposal. Finally, the actual change must be analyzed and presented to the decision makers (Randall & Jowett 2010).
The following are the most vital Environment Impact Assessment Techniques that are commonly applied in disaster prone areas. They include; Modeling, Conducting field studies (Initial Environmental Examination), Scooping, Impact Examination, Integration of Mitigation measures and monitoring.
Modeling
In most Environment Impact Assessment procedures, modeling is the initial step of approaching the assessment program (Abbasi & Arya 2000). Modeling refers to establishment of a prototype or a pilot project that will represent the whole project of assessment. In order to do this successfully, the project team must familiarize themselves with the surrounding environment and all its dynamics. The project team must also know what factors affect that environment in order to come up with a model that will watch with the characteristics of the actual environment. For instance, if it is an environment that experiences a lot of earthquakes, the developers of the model should design one that that matches those characteristics at its best. However according to Alexander & Fairbridge (2006) this technique is rarely applied as it mostly applied in most complex situations and where the assessment experts are sourced from without the environment under assessment. Assessors of a certain event, say, a tsunami will draw up the model of the most frequented area by the tsunamis and try to extrapolate using past information of how future attack may impact the surrounding population. This technique is equally important as it acts a method of anticipating risks and outcomes are to caution the people on the repercussions should such events happen.
Scooping
Scoping is a technique of finding support to establish the issues to be investigated in the EIS. This method has the ability to recognize what the EIS should include, and the extent to which each issue requires interest. Abbasi and Arya (2000) argued that a judgment about implication is commonly required to decide whether an EIA is undertaken; for example, effects of the environment on humans. The objective of the scoping stage is to identify the important items to be included in the EIS, as most consideration is given to those environmental issues that may be significantly affected. When assessing on the impact of natural disasters, the assessors first of all begin by determining the impact to be investigated and carry out the magnitude of the impact and the scope of the affected people in that area of study (Abbasi & Arya 2000).
Colombo (1992) lists the aims of scoping as: first, to identify concerns and issues requiring consideration. Here, the main concern concerns are listed first and the order of their necessity follows in that order. Secondly, to aid an efficient EIS preparation process that will be followed by the project team managers and authorities concerned. Third, is to enable those responsible for EIA to properly brief the study team on the alternatives and impacts to be considered at different depths of analysis. This is the most crucial ones as it enables al team member to work under a common goal and also helps to avoid massive external impacts. Fourth, is to provide an opportunity for public involvement where the public will be invited to share their views and ideas that may assist successful completion of the project. Lastly, is to save time through cutting out unnecessary procedures and focusing energy on the important tasks.
Field Survey/Screening
The resolution to carry out an EIA may be grounded on various bases, depending on the objective, policy or project (Cuff & Ruddy 1994). The process to decide whether an EIA is required or not is generally called screening. Screening is carried out so as to ensure that proposals that will have a major impact on the environment will experience an EIA. The decisions taken during the early stage of the EIA are of significant importance to the procedure. In many situations the screening process is controlled by the national legislation. In nations like China, America and the EU there is a list of projects where EIA is required. If this is the case, it is decided in close co-operation with the authorities. Screening is also vital in cases when there are no legal requirements. James (1994) asserted that big industrial and construction organizations have procedures for triggering EIA as a part of planning and design processes. A screening in the planning process gives the proponent knowledge on possible locations at an early stage, which may lead to design changes to improve the environmental performance.
Screening also is an important opportunity to make contact links to local people at an early stage. The screening may be based on policy decisions or on a preliminary study. In the policy based screening there may be criteria e g for projects taking a certain amount of land or sited in areas with high requirements on water quality.
Impact Examination
According to Lu and Showalter (2009) Impact identification and examination refers to the establishment of ground for designing appropriate and effective strategies aimed at confronting the disaster that has just happened or that happened some time back. It simply implies to the act of measuring the effects caused by a certain event like a disaster, and laying down strategies of nullifying those effects. The examiners should seek ways of organising information and generate substantial literature and reports concerning their investigation but should not try to draw up conclusions as yet. This technique has been a topic of many researchers and assessors who deal with natural disasters and other disasters like fires, floods etc. Therefore, impact examination is a technical exercise and for the purposes EIA and is conducted successfully by supplementing it with the previous techniques in a mechanical manner. However, the method constitutes useful support in the identification of impacts in a structured and systematic way. The task of making decisions about the possible impacts and their importance still lies with the rest of the team members.
For purposes of deriving accurate information on the impact of the disaster, examiners in this technique apply models and tools that assist them to gather as much accurate information and data as possible (Lu & Showalter 2009). Some of these tools include; network diagrams, checklists, matrices and overlays. However, in more complex situations, these tools may not serve their purpose because the process may become so static and thus fail to include some data into account. Similarly, may only assist in identifying the impact and fail to provide solutions thereon.
Integration of Mitigation Measures
This is the technique used by the assessment team to bring in the members of the public who were and who were not affected. Generally, it is a technique to invite the whole community in the area of impact to come aboard and assess the design prepared by the assessors and comment basing on their views. The new design is integrated into the society to determine its effect and impact in trying to solve the problem caused by the environment. The assessors must be keen and very observant to check the reactions of the people and most likely they take notes on areas to improve, areas to change and the areas to uphold. Two key measures are taken here; one adoption of the design and two, discarding the design altogether. If the changes are too complex or seem to exceed scheduled time, the design is discarded and a new one is started almost immediately, but if it promises better results and is appreciated by the people, it is adopted and implemented immediately.
Monitoring
After the mitigation examination, the public is yet again called upon to contribute in providing inputs while the assessors carry out the monitoring process. Anhava (1994) purported that the legislation most likely demands for environmental reporting when treating permits to activities with large environmental impact. For other types of activities the demand for follow up of the EIA usually is less pronounced. Anhava (1994) argued that monitoring is significant in the process of assessing impacts for it provides assessors with feedback that the measures they have put in place are working or not. From their reports in this monitoring technique, they will now be able to draw up final conclusions of the whole process.
Conclusion
The Environment Impact Assessment is one of the key methods used by assessors to determine the impact of disasters and events on environmental issues. Having been developed in the late 1970s it is (since then) been the widely used method by environmentalists and assessors due to its effective techniques. The techniques have been endorsed by many researchers and environmentalists all over the world due to their applicability and efficient results. For maximum utilization of the techniques, one has to first understand the scope of EIA and how to apply the techniques and on what context to apply them. This is because EIA has many contexts on which to be used and those wishing to apply it should firs consider seeking proper guidance.
Bibliography
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