ABSTRACT
Chapter 11 focuses on the prospects for more effective EIA. This starts with a discussion of the different dimensions of EIA effectiveness: effectiveness can relate to the EIA process, whether the EIA changes the project, whether EIA fosters public participation and helps to accommodate competing points of view, etc. The chapter then explores the current concern in many countries for a more streamlined, or more proportionate, EIA. This is followed by a consideration of a set of emerging, more future-oriented possible developments in some important areas of the EIA process and in the nature of EISs. They include the impact of technological change on EIA (remote sensing, social media, ‘big data’, data visualization, expert systems and decision support systems); and the changing interpretation of the project (new types of projects, ‘salami slicing’, ‘in principle’ projects, designing projects within environmental limits, decommissioning). The chapter concludes with a discussion of project implementation, monitoring and adaptive management, via Environmental Management Systems and Environmental Management Plans; and moves towards a more integrated impact assessment. Together, these topics act as a kind of action list for future improvements to the EIA process for projects.
