EIA Systems: A Comparative Study And A Review Of Recent Developments Of Regulations And Best Practices

Nowadays, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is established in nationallegislations, development banksprocedures, and industry practices. EIA is also wellrecognized by International Conventions for environmental protection. However, EIAsystemsvary greatly in procedures and practices among national legislation andextraction industry. This thesis reviews EIA legislation of ten legislations in the scopeof four aspects included in EIA system: environmental baseline study, biodiversity andecosystem services impacts, public participation and risk assessment. The thesisexamines the relative strengths and weaknesses of the ten EIA legislations highlightedthrough a comparison study. Recommended measuresto increase the effectiveness andexisting best practices of EIA system are also identified. The results of the comparativestudy demonstrate that no EIA legislation is perfect despite an increase of EIAinternational standards and an active academic research on EIA performance. Thisthesis concludes with some suggestions forfuture EIA systems. In the scope of TOTALaspirations, the main objectives of this study are to assist the Company with newregulations concerning EIA, highlight “gold” standards and good practices for theimprovement of TOTAL environmental norms.