The Environmental Impact Assessment,
- hereinafter EIA - is one of the preventive instruments of environmental
management that allows environmental policies to be met and that are
incorporated, early in the process of development and decision making. Therefore,
it evaluates and corrects human actions and avoids, mitigates, or compensates
for any negative environmental impacts.
The EIA adopts a long-term
approach and guarantees a complete and integrated vision of the meaning of
human actions on the environment.
The general objective of the EIA
is to frame human activities in the environmental policy that supports
sustainable development.
In many cases, through the EIA,
new technology is introduced into the environment, which could solve problems
of deterioration. However, the evaluation and consultation process must examine
the implications not only of the project but also of the environmental risks
derived from the technology itself.
The EIA Project analyzes the
particularities of the action in all its phases (design, construction,
operation, and abandonment) and proposes corrective measures to eliminate,
minimize or compensate for alterations, which imply damage to the environment,
in a preventive manner.
It is a significant alteration of
the environment of positive or negative character; When they are direct they
involve partial or total loss of a resource or deterioration of an
environmental variable (polluting waters, clearing forests, etc.); When they
are indirect, they induce and generate other risks on the environment (for
example, floods).
The impacts can be manifested: in
a small area but with intense alteration; in large areas even if they are of
low individual magnitude; positively and negatively, directly and indirectly,
cumulatively and inducing other changes/risks.
The preventive approach consists
of identifying and evaluating environmental impacts before they occur; for
this, there are important steps to consider in the evaluation, such as:
- Define exactly what should be excluded because it is not environmentally significant. Also called "screening" or "screening".
- Define the scope that determines the key points that are necessary to examine in the evaluation. Also called "scoping".
- Use the particular methods in each case, such as the analysis of scenarios, environmental standards of a preventive nature, and the use of integrating methodologies.
- Define the information and participation needs of citizens.
An environmental impact
assessment process is not in itself an instrument of decision but generates an
orderly, coherent and reproducible set of antecedents that allow the promoter
of a project, the competent authority, and the citizenry, in each case, to make
informed and accurate decisions. All this is possible when an Environmental
Impact Study is presented, and the respective authority submits it to a
participatory review process to qualify the quality of the analysis.
It is important to highlight the
preventive nature of the process since it guides decision-making in the stages
prior to the execution of the action in question. In this sense, the
environmental impact assessment process is always developed prior to the
planned action.
