Monitoring and auditing: after the decision - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 197

introduce feedback in order to learn from experience; we must avoid the constant
“reinventing of the wheel” in EIA. Monitoring and auditing of outcomes can contribute to
an improvement in all aspects of the EIA process, from understanding baseline conditions
to the framing of effective mitigating measures. In addition, Greene et al. (1985) note that
monitoring and auditing should reduce time and resource commitments to EIA by
allowing all participants to learn from past experience; they should also contribute to a
general enhancing of the credibility of proponents, regulatory agencies and EIA
processes. We are learning, and there is a considerable growth of interest in examining
the effectiveness of the EIA process in practice. Unfortunately, there are a number of
significant issues that have greatly limited the use of monitoring and auditing to date.
These issues and possible ways forward for monitoring and auditing in practice are now
discussed.
7.3 Monitoring in practice
7.3.1 Key elements
Monitoring implies the systematic collection of a potentially large quantity of
information over a long period of time. Such information should include not only the
traditional indicators (e.g. ambient air quality, noise levels, the size of a workforce) but
also causal underlying factors (e.g. the decisions and policies of the local authority and
developer). The causal factors determine the impacts and may have to be changed if there
is a wish to modify impacts. Opinions about impacts are also important. Individual and
group “social constructions of reality” (IAIA 1994) are often sidelined as “mere
perceptions, or emotions”, not to be weighted as heavily as facts. But such opinions can
be very influential in determining the response to a project. To ignore or undervalue them
may not be methodologically defensible and is likely to raise hostility. Monitoring should
also analyse impact equity. The distribution of impacts will vary between groups and
locations; some groups may be more vulnerable than others, as a result of factors such as
age, race, gender and income. So a systematic attempt to identify opinions can be an
important input into a monitoring study.
The information collected needs to be stored, analysed and communicated to relevant
participants in the EIA process. A primary requirement, therefore, is to focus monitoring
activity only on “those environmental parameters expected to experience a significant
impact, together with those parameters for which the assessment methodology or basic
data were not so well establisbed as desired” (Lee & Wood 1980).
Monitoring is an integral part of EIA; baseline data, project descriptions, impact
predictions and mitigation measures should be developed with monitoring implications in
mind. An EIS should include a monitoring programme which has clear objectives,
temporal and spatial controls, an adequate duration (e.g. covering the main stages of the
project's implementation), practical methodologies, sufficient funding, clear
responsibilities and open and regular reporting. Ideally, the monitoring activity should
include a partnership between the parties involved; for example, the collection of
information could involve the developer, local authority and local community.