Environmental Impact Assessment
Dr. Aneesh Mathew
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
NIT Tiruchirappalli
What is EIA???
EIA is an activity designed to identify and predict the impact of a
project on biogeophysicochemical environment and on human health so
as to recommend appropriate legislative measures, programs, and
operational procedures to minimize the impact.
An environmental impact assessment (EIA) is an assessment of the
possible positive or negative impact that a proposed project may have
on the environment, considering natural, Social and Economic aspects.
EIA
According to The International Association of Impact Assessment (IAIA)-
The process of identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the
biophysical, social, and other relevant effects of development proposals prior
to major decisions being taken and commitments made.
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What is the significance of EIA?
Salient Features of EIA
• Identifies the possible positive and negative
impacts to the environment for "short-term" and
1 "long-term"
• Provides for a plan, which upon
implementation, will reduce or offset the negative
2 impacts of a project
• Provides a monitoring program to measure the
3 level of plan implementation
Reference components of EIA
Legal and institutional framework of regulation, guidance
and procedure - establishes the requirements for the conduct
of EIA
The steps and activities of the EIA process, as applied to
specific types of proposals
The practice and performance of EIA, as evidenced by the
quality of EIA reports prepared, the decisions taken and the
environmental benefits delivered
EIA Procedure
Initial Environmental Examination
Full-Scale Environmental Impact
Assessment
Impact assessment methods are classified into following analytical functions:
1. Scope
2. identification,
3. prediction, and
4. evaluation.
Figure: Generalized EIA process and flow chart
Impact Evaluation and Analysis
Purpose of an EIA evaluation - comparatively evaluate alternative
courses of action (range: no-action to no-build)
The major steps are:
Identifying major activities
Selecting environmental components
Selecting types of impacts
Assessing the possibilities and or probabilities of occurrences
Determining the degree and time frame of impacts
Designating impacts as positive, neutral or negative
Determining trade-offs among activities and impacts
Classification of Environmental
Parameters
Some of the selected relevant environmental parameters are:
Crop productivity
Air quality
Water quality of aquatic resources
Nutrient status of water
Drinking water quality
Availability of agricultural land
Impact of land clearing activities in forest areas
Physical Human use values
Soil erosion Impairment of D/S water quality
Loss of soil fertility Sedimentation & flooding hazard
Loss of rain water infiltration Quality of life values
Increase temperature Forest tourism/aesthetic value
Ecological Impairment of D/S water quality
Loss of forest resource Disruption of forest population
Encroachment hazard Insect vector disease hazard
Hazard from pesticide
Activity
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A Case Study
Direct and indirect impact of typical construction project on mangrove
swamp and rise growing area
Activity
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EIA – Stages of project involvement
Planning
Final design/construction start-up
Project operations
Relationship between the various stages of a project development and the
timing for the tasks to be included in the EIA process
Environmental Base Map (EBM)
An important requirement is preparation of EBM
Shows the salient information as in planning, and final
design/construction start-up
Includes the essential background information on the
environmental situation so that the reviewer can readily
interpret (& conclusion + recommendation)
Industrial Development Project usually includes
demography
land use infrastructure
receiving water
ground water and soil conditions
other industries and their waste streams
institutions
ecological resources
areas of cultural importance
archaeological importance
Tourist importance
The EBM should be portrayed as simply as possible and for this purpose a
schematic type drawing will usually be more appropriate than a map drawn
strictly to scale.
Classification of Environmental Parameters
Four Categories
Natural physical resources
Natural ecological resources
Human/economic development resources and
Quality-of-Iife values including aesthetic and cultural
values
Unit 1 (Second part)
EIA Methodologies
EIA analyst faced with a vast quantity of raw and usually unorganized
data
Technique and method for the evaluation of impacts should have the
following qualities and characteristics
It should be systematic in approach
It should be able to organize a large mass of heterogeneous data
It should be able to quantify the impacts
Continued ….
It should be capable of summarizing the data
Itshould be able to aggregate the data into sets with the least
loss of information because of the aggregations
It should have a good predictive capability
It should extract the salient features
Itshould finally be able to display the raw data and the
derived information in a meaningful fashion
Criteria for the Selection of EIA Methodology
(a) General
Simplicity
Manpower, time and budget constraints
Flexibility
(b) Impact Identification Interpretation and Evaluation
Comprehensiveness
Specificity
Isolation of project impact
Timing and duration
Criteria for the Selection of EIA Methodology
(c) Impact Measurement
Commensurate units
Explicit indicators
Magnitude
Objective criteria
(d) Impact Interpretation and Evaluation
Significance
Explicit criteria
Portrayal of“ with" and "wit/wilt" situation
Uncertainly
Risk
Depth. Of analysis
Alterative comparison
Public involvement
(e) Impact Communication
Affected parties
Setting description
Summary format
Key issues
Compliance
E I A methods
Ad-hoc methods
Checklists methods
Matrix methods
Networks methods
Overlays methods
Environmental index using factor analysis
Cost/benefit analysis
Predictive or Simulation methods
Ad-hoc methods
Indicate broad areas of possible impacts by listing
composite environmental parameters (for example flora
and fauna) likely to be affected by any development
Matrix methods
Iinteractions between various activities and environmental
parameters considered
Provide cause-effect relationships b/w project activities &
their impacts on environmentally important components
Provides a graphic tool for displaying impacts to their
audience in a manner that can be easily comprehended
Network methods
Capable of identifying direct and indirect impacts, higher order
effects and interactions between impacts
Network of pulp mill impacts
Overlay methods
Involve preparation of a set of transparent maps, which represent
the spatial distribution of an environmental characteristic
Limited to 10 maps - visibility
Cost/Benefit analysis
Cost/benefit analysis provides the nature of expense and benefit
accruable from a project in monetary terms
Enables easy understanding and aids decision-making
Divided into three categories:
Use of economics for "benefit-cost analysis" as an integral part of
project selection
Use of economics in the assessment of activities suggested by the
EIA
Economic assessment of the environmental impacts of the project
Tasks to be completed for economical
analysis of environmental impacts
Determine the spatial and conceptual boundaries of the analysis
Identify environmental impacts and their relationships to the project
Quantify environmental impacts and organize them according to
importance
Choose a technique for economic valuation
Economic valuation (place monetary values) of environmental impacts
identified
Set an appropriate time frame and perform the extended benefit cost
analysis
Environmental Medium Quality Index Method
Steps include
Factor identification
Assignment of importance weights
Establishment of scaling sections or other methods for factor
evaluation
Termination and implementation of the appropriate aggregation
approach
application of field verification
Consists of delineating key factors that can be used as
Indicators of environmental quality
Susceptibility to pollution
Pollution potential of the source type
e.g. Air Pollution Index
Cont … Calculation based on a single index
e.g. Water Quality Index
