The evolution, substance and application of environmental impact assessments in South Africa

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Environmental impact assessments have become increasingly popular over the pastfew years, by necessity and due to the general increase in environmentalawareness. By definition, environmental impact assessment is a process having theultimate objective of providing decision makers with an indication of the likelyconsequences of their intended actions. First popularized in the United States ofAmerica in the seventies, environmental impact assessments have since evolvedworldwide into an effective decision making tool.In South Africa, environmental impact assessments became legally enforceable in1998 under the Environment Conservation Act (Act 73 of 1989) and presently servesas an effective tool in facilitating decision making for sustainable development. Alarge number of impact assessments are at present being produced for allcategories of activities, but questions arise about the effectiveness of theseassessments in fulfilling their intended purpose.The present study aims to answer these questions and provide insight into thenature, content and standard of environmental impact assessment in South Africa byexamining the foundations and application of the concept. The main method ofresearch was the analysis of various assessments, already submitted to regionalauthorities, on the basis of content, methods used, depth of analysis, degree ofpublic input and their overall contribution to the better understanding of the problemat hand.During the analysis many inadequacies and merits of these impact assessmentswere revealed. The quality of reports ranged from good (about one third) to averageand poor (about one third). Shortcomings identified related inter alia to datacollection; ignorance of socio-economic factors; ignorance of cumulative effects; andanalysis and evaluation problems. The benefits that these impact assessments could bring about, were also analysed.It was deduced that there were inherent benefits the most practical being that thegood reports assisted the decision making process considerably. Sustainabledevelopment was also promoted.It was found that the implementation of the concept still needs more stringentmanagement and monitoring with improved application and incorporation into thepresent planning approach

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University