Assessing the environmental impacts of construction in Antarctica

Abstract

[Excerpt] Introduction: The origin of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was in 1969, as part of the US National Environmental Policy Act which imposed the obligation of all federal agencies to evaluate the potential impacts of activities on the environment (Ortolano and Shepherd, 1995). Its emergence coincided with the recognition of the fact that human activities could lead to changes in the natural setting (Morgan, 2012).

The EIA is a procedure to identify, predict, investigate, evaluate and mitigate impacts from activities that are likely to have substantial effects on the environment. The evaluation must happen during the design and planning phase and can be done in different approaches such as interaction matrices, prediction of impacts, investigation and decision-making by government agencies (Toro et al., 2013).

Recognized and used by many countries, the EIA methods are based on systematic environmental studies, in addition to relying on the support of a public consultation to assess project execution (Jay et al., 2007). The EIA have contributed to monitoring the development of environmental protection projects, the implementation of environmental laws and mainly as an instrument that assists decision-making in several administrative spheres (Morgan, 2012). [...]