Starting up; early stages - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 91

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Starting up; early stages
4.1 Introduction
This is the first of four chapters that discuss how an EIA is carried out. The focus
throughout is on both the procedures required by UK legislation and the ideal of best
practice. Although Chapters 4-7 seek to provide a logical step-by-step approach through
the EIA process, there is no one exclusive approach. Every EIA process is set within an
institutional context, and the context will vary from country to country (see Chapter 10).
As already noted, even in one country, the UK, there may be a variety of regulations for
different projects (see Chapter 9). The various steps in the process can be taken in
different sequences. Some may be completely missing in certain cases. The process
should also not just be linear but build in cycles, with feedback from later stages to the
earlier ones.
Chapter 4 covers the early stages of the EIA process. These include setting up a
management process for the EIA activity, clarifying whether an EIA is required at all
(“screening”) and an outline of the extent of the EIA (“scoping”), which may involve
consultation between several of the key actors outlined in Chapter 3. Early stages of EIA
should also include an exploration of possible alternative approaches for a project.
Baseline studies, setting out the parameters of the development action (including
associated policy positions) and the present and future state of the environment involved,
are also included in Chapter 4. However, the main section in the chapter is devoted to
impact identification. This is important in the early stages of the process, but, reflecting
the cyclical, interactive nature of the process, some of the impact identification methods
discussed here may also be used in the later stages. Conversely, some of the prediction,
evaluation, communication and mitigation approaches discussed in Chapter 5 can be used
in the early stages, as can the participation approaches outlined in Chapter 6. The
discussion in this chapter starts, however, with a brief introduction to the management of
the EIA process.
4.2 Managing the EIA process
Environmental impact assessment is a management-intensive process. EIAs often deal
with major (and sometimes poorly defined) projects, with many wide-ranging and often
controversial impacts. As we noted in Chapter 3, they can involve many participants with
very different perspectives on the relative merits and impacts of projects. It is important
that the EIA process is well managed. This section notes some of the elements involved
in such management.