Case studies of EIA in practice - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 283

within the Ptarmigan building and viewing terrace, returning to the base
station using the railway. Mountain walkers are welcome to walk from the
car park and use the facilities at the Ptarmigan, but may not use the
railway for their return journey and are asked to sign in and out of the
building at the walkers' entrance.
As noted in earlier chapters of this topic, monitoring can support effective mitigation
measures. For this project, monitoring will cover all topics subject to baseline surveys—
including visitor levels, behaviour and, habitats, birds, soils and geomorphology. It will
use the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) method, whereby indicators and levels of
acceptable change will be identified, monitored and, when levels are reached, will trigger
management responses (see Glasson et al. 1995). In response to a concern about the
independence of the monitoring activity, the annual monitoring reports will be presented
to the SNH and the Highlands Council by an independent reporting officer jointly
appointed by them.
9.6.5 Conclusions
The Cairngorm Funicular has now been operational for 3 years. Visitor numbers have
been less than the predictions in the ES, but still represent a substantial increase on
previous levels in the 1990s. All conditions have been complied with, the Section 50(75)
agreement has been secured, and a good working partnership has been established
between public authorities and the operator; there is access by allabilities to the
Ptarmigan top station, an improved footpath system and the old White Lady chairlift
system has been removed. On the basis of such achievements, the Highlands Council
submitted the development for a 2003 Scottish Award for Quality in Planning (Highland
Council 2003).
9.7 Humber Estuary projects—assessment of cumulative effects
9.7.1 Introduction
This case study provides an example of an attempt to assess the cumulative impacts of a
number of adjacent concurrent projects in the Humber Estuary, Humberside, UK,
undertaken in the late 1990s. This type of cumulative effects assessment (CEA), which
was undertaken collaboratively by the developers involved in the various projects, is
relatively uncommon in EIA. However, a number of other examples do exist, for
example, in wind energy development cases in which several wind farms have been
proposed in the same area. More generally, the assessment of cumulative impacts is
widely regarded as one of the weak elements in project-level EIA (see, for example,
Cooper & Sheate 2002; see also Section 11.3).
Cumulative effects assessment studies of the type described here present a number of
difficulties, and the case study examines how and to what extent these were overcome.
The benefits derived from the CEA process are also discussed, from the viewpoint of the
various stakeholders involved. This case study is based on research carried out by Jake