Environmental Impact Assessment

Environmental Impact Assessment.

Tõnis Põder and Tiit Lukki in the scientific article ‘‘A critical review of checklist–based evaluation of environmental impact statements‘‘ maintains that both checklists – Review Package and Review Checklist are arranged hierarchically, the methods of aggregation are analysed from the viewpoint of the value-tree assessment model. Authors in the article focused on two key issues that influence aggregation: mutual compensation and relative weights of criteria. The other topic that authors maintain is the inter-individual variability of judgements and they was focused on one of them: cognitive-psychological factor. The next point is the neglecting quality of information. The Review Package and Review Checklist address the information differently. For instance, in the Review Package the quality of information is covered, based on data sources, rationale for selecting impact identification methods. However, the Review Package omits this issue and declared unsuitable for verifying the quality of information. Further, another issue is probability of predictions. Both of analyzed checklist focus on identification, prediction and evaluation of EIA. The lack of questions about alternatives is a common feature of both tools maintain the authors. In the Review Package only 3 out of 52 Review address alternatives, meanwhile in the Review Checklist 7 out of 123 questions address alternatives. The last question for both checklist is public participation in the assessment of significance of impacts. The T. Põder and the T.Lukki empahasise that the Review Package does not explicity feature public input in the assessment of significance of impacts meanwhile in the Review of Checklist, the public role in this assessment is omitted. From this analysis we can see that these checklist have similarities, but they still have drawbacks.