ABSTRACT
If the consideration of alternatives lies at the heart of the environmental impact statement (see Chapter 8) then the mitigation of environmental impacts lies at the heart of the EIA process. In practice, the consideration of alternatives is intertwined with the consideration of mitigation measures. In the Netherlands, for example, mitigation measures are called ‘alternatives’. One twin purpose of EIA is, in essence, to persuade the decision-making authority to authorise the action by reducing the adverse impacts of a proposed project to an acceptable level while maximising the beneficial impacts. The second purpose of EIA is to prevent unsuitable development by demonstrating that certain impacts cannot be mitigated to the point of acceptability. This chapter explains why the mitigation of environmental impacts is important and advances several evaluation criteria to assist in the review of this element of the EIA process. These criteria are then employed in the analysis and comparison of the EIA systems in the United States, UK, the Netherlands, Canada, Commonwealth of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
