Development control by EIA

Environmental Impact Assessment for Landscape Architecture 

Control by EIA has become a highly structured procedure. The authors of a textbook on Environmental impact assessment identify fifteen steps in the process of EIA (Glasson et al, 1994:3):

1. Project screening
2. Scoping
3. Consideration of alternatives
4. Description of the project/development action
5. Description of the environmental baseline
6. Identification of key impacts
7. Prediction of impacts
8. Evaluation and assessment of significance
9. Mitigation
10. Public consultation and participation
11. EIS presentation
12. Review of the EIS
13. Decision-making
14. Post-decision monitoring
15. Auditing

The EIA process is effective at permiting some projects and halting others. It is not as effective as it ought to be in securing improvements to a project design. This is identified as stage 9 in the above list but, as the authors note, mitigation 'is in fact inherent in all aspects of the process' (Glasson et al, 1994:137)