The consideration of water resources within environmental impact assessment process in Egypt | ||
| Catrina: The International Journal of Environmental Sciences | ||
| Article 5, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 31-39 PDF (643.13 K) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| Author | ||
| El-Sayed Badr* | ||
| Environmental Sciences Department, Faculty of Science at Damietta, Mansoura University, New Damietta City, PO Box 103, Egypt | ||
| Abstract | ||
| Water impact assessment (WIA) is a sub-discipline of environmental impact assessment (EIA), focusing on potential impacts of a proposed development on the water environment. This study aimed to evaluate "how well" the EIA process is working in practice, particularly for water resources section. Forty randomly selected environmental impact statements (EISs) produced between 2000 and 2007 were reviewed for the quality of addressing water resources by using a quality review package. The 40 EISs were randomly selected for various project types including industry, tourism, infrastructure, energy, landfill and agriculture. The review concluded that about 60% of the EISs sampled were found to be of satisfactory quality in assessing potential impacts on water environment. WIA proved to be poorer in quality in relation to EISs overall quality. Scoping, alternatives, impact predication, significance evaluation and monitoring proved to be the main weakness areas for WIA. It is inferred that WIA is less problematic for certain development categories (i.e., energy and infrastructure) than others. The paper identified main strengths and shortcoming regarding assessing potential impacts of proposed developments upon water resources. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| EIA in Egypt; environment impact statement; quality review; water resources | ||
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