The future development of environmental impact assessment

The first part of the article contains a review of the logic of EIA tiering and the likely requirements for satisfactory tiering arangements. Consideration is given to the stages in planning and decision processes at which an EIA might best be carried out, the choice of assessment methods appropriate to each stage, and the importance of adaptability as an ingredient in such a tiered system. The relationship between informal (internal organization provision) and formal (statutorily based) environmental impact assessment provision is also examined. The second part contains a review of current practice in the use of environmental impact assessment methods, and particularly of those aspects where improvements should now be sought. The usefulness of developing new integrated environmental impact assessment methodologies is questioned. Instead, more substantial progress may be made by first evaluating the assessment methods already available in relation to the specific tasks - of identification, measurement and prediction, significance assessment and communication - which they are expected to perform. In each of these areas, considerable improvement is possible if ''best available practice'' can be more clearly identified and then more widely practised. The use of working groups, each containing technical specialists and users of environmental impact data inmore » decision-making, is recommended for this purpose. (JMT)« less