Land take and the effectiveness of project screening in Environmental Impact Assessment: Findings from an empirical study

摘要

Land take is emerging as a global environmental concern, and is particularly critical in intensively developed and land-scarce regions. This paper seeks to understand the effectiveness of the screening stage of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in addressing land take. Screening is the stage where a decision is made as to whether an EIA is required for a project. In many jurisdictions, screening results in three pathways: full EIA directly, preliminary EIA only, or preliminary EIA followed by full EIA. We compared the land take of 217 projects triggering the different pathways in a study region in Italy over a 15-year time interval. Land take was quantified by overlaying the footprint of the projects with a land cover map.