Processes and practice in environmental impact assessment:a comparison between Portugal and the United Kingdom

• Author(s): Barroso, Juliana Marino
• Date: 2009
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/1490
• Origin: Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa
• Subject(s): Impacto ambiental; Gestão costeira; Avaliação ambiental; Teses de mestrado
• Document Type: Master thesis
• Language: Portuguese
• Advisor(s): Cabral, Henrique N.; Elliot, Mike
• Contributor(s): Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa

Description

Tese de mestrado, Ecologia Marinha, 2009, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências

Resumo alargado em português disponível no documento

Human populations occupy intensively coastal areas throughout the world, probably given the goods and services provided by coastal systems that contribute significantly to employment and economic activities. Consequently, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) associated to these areas is very high compared to inland areas, contributing clearly to human well-being. As a result, coastal and marine areas are subject to many environmental pressures and impacts. Countries have long been responding to these pressures by implementing different regulatory frameworks. The European Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive is one of the most important environmental management tools applying by the European Member States (MS), because it covers many activities that are carried out in coastal areas but also because some basic environmental information, necessary to fulfil EIA requirements, might be used in other regulations. Therefore, and because MS transposed and implemented the Directive dissimilarly, the present study analyzes the differences between the legal implementation and practice of the Directive in Portugal and in the United Kingdom (UK), considering this Directive as an example for another ones. To achieve this objective, detailed flow-charts were created based on national regulations and a SWOT (Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats) analysis was performed for each stage of the EIA procedure (e.g. Screening, Scoping, Environmental Statement Preparation and Submission, Technical Review, Public Consultation, Decision-Making and Post EIA Process). During this work it was possible to understand that, in some cases, EIA good performance is affected by the regulations such as with the possibility of tacit acceptance or with the consideration of short periods of public consultation. In other cases, it is the practical application that influences the quality of the procedure, for example with the non compliance of the Scoping stage in the majority of the project's development. Consequently, some recommendations were made for several points in order to improve those which are negatively influencing a good performance of the EIA procedure.