Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for UPSC prelims and Mains
A decision making tool, EIA compares various alternatives for a project and seeks to identify the one which represents the best combination of economic and environmental costs and benefits.
What is EIA?
Evolution of EIA
History of EIA in India
The EIA process
Forms of impact assessment
A comparative review of EIA procedures and practices
Environment Impact Assessment or EIA can be defined as the study to predict the effect of a proposed activity/project on the environment. A decision-making tool, EIA compares various alternatives for a project and seeks to identify the one which represents the best combination of economic and environmental costs and benefits.
The eight steps of the EIA process are presented in brief below:
Screening: First stage of EIA, which determines whether the proposed project, requires an EIA and if it does, then the level of assessment required.
Scoping: This stage identifies the key issues and impacts that should be further investigated. This stage also defines the boundary and time limit of the study.
Impact analysis: This stage of EIA identifies and predicts the likely environmental and social impact of the proposed project and evaluates the significance.
Mitigation: This step in EIA recommends the actions to reduce and avoid the potential adverse environmental consequences of development activities.
Reporting: This stage presents the result of EIA in a form of a report to the decision-making body and other interested parties.
Review of EIA: It examines the adequacy and effectiveness of the EIA report and provides the information necessary for decision-making.
Decision-making: It decides whether the project is rejected, approved or needs further change.
Post monitoring: This stage comes into play once the project is commissioned. It checks to ensure that the impacts of the project do not exceed the legal standards and implementation of the mitigation measures are in the manner as described in the EIA report