Contemporary Issues in Environmental Impact Assessment

Abstract

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) developed in the latter half of the twentieth century as a response to growing concern about the impacts of human development on the environment and a recognition of the inadequacy of existing approaches to environmental management. Once an uncertain and new area, it is now ubiquitous in the approval process for projects across the world. It is trite law to say that the impacts of proposed activities should be considered in the process to determine whether the proposed activities should be permitted. However, environmental impact assessment is often understood broadly and leaves many issues unresolved. What is an impact of development? How far removed (how indirect) can the impacts be that an EIA can consider? What about the cumulative impacts of similar projects? When can these be taken into account? This paper identifies three contemporary issues in EIA, assessed in the context of climate change: the scope of EIA, cumulative impacts and temporal problems.

Note: This article was first published by Thomson Reuters in the Environmental and Planning Law Journal and should be cited as Brian J Preston, Contemporary Issues in Environmental Impact Assessment, (2021) 37 EPLJ 423.

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Keywords: Environmental impact assessment, planning and development

JEL Classification: K32