Assessing and managing the potential for compliance default of applications submitted in terms of South Africa's environmental impact assessment regulations
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Authors
Youthed, Jennifer Gay
Issue Date
2009-01
Type
Thesis
Language
en
Keywords
Environmental impact assessment, , EIA follow-up , Environmental management , Compliance default , Risk screening , Overall environmental impact , Eastern Cape , South Africa
Alternative Title
Abstract
In the environmental impact assessment (EIA) field, much attention is paid to the
process leading up to the granting of an environmental authorization, but very little is
given to what happens after the consent decision is granted. This study aimed to
address this lack through the implementation of an EIA follow-up procedure in a region
of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Follow-up focused on assessing the amount
of non-compliance with EIA consent conditions as well as the overall impact that projects
had had on the environment. The results of this follow-up process were then used to
develop a risk screening tool that could be used to screen out new EIA applications that
were likely to require follow-up to control default or impact.
Projects that showed the greatest amount of default were those submitted by local
municipal proponents for basic infrastructure type activities such as sewage treatment
works and low-income housing developments. Private companies that compete in the
open market presented the lowest default risk. Default with consent conditions ranged
between 0% and 100% with an average rate of default of 49%.
The overall environmental impact for the majority (58%) of projects followed-up on was
low (on a 5 point scale of low to high), with only 1% of projects scoring high on impact.
The study found a moderate positive correlation between default and impact (rs = 0.48)
although a significant percentage (39%) of projects scored high on default but low on
impact. Follow-up appears to have had a positive effect on reducing the average
amounts of default and to a lesser extent the degree of impact.
The risk screening tool developed is promising with statistically significant matches
between predicted and actual default and impact scores for three out of the four test
samples.
Description
Citation
Youthed, Jennifer Gay (2009) Assessing and managing the potential for compliance default of applications submitted in terms of South Africa's environmental impact assessment regulations, University of South Africa, Pretoria, <http://hdl.handle.net/10500/2869>