Inclusion of uncertainty in Environmental Impact Assessment in Greenland
Section snippets
Introduction: impact assessment as a tool for integrating uncertainty in decision-making
Impact Assessment (IA) can be defined as “the process of identifying the future consequences of a current or proposed action” (IAIA, 2009 p. 1). The purpose of IA is to promote sustainable development by providing science-based information on the possible impacts of a proposed action to decision-makers as well as the public. Thus, mitigation and monitoring of impacts and promoting transparency and participation in the process are important parts of IA. (IAIA, 2009) As indicated by the
Methodology
In order to contribute to exploring the questions posed above, three Greenlandic EIA processes (Table 2) were selected based on the following criteria:
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Geography: securing cases from different geographical areas of Greenland while focusing on areas with a local population
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Status: securing cases in different stages of the project process from preparation to operation
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Legislation: securing at least one case which has been processed according to each of the two sets of EIA legislation in Greenland
The
Uncertainty in the EIA process
In the following subsections, the results concerning whether and how uncertainty is acknowledged in the EIA reports and hearings are presented, in accordance with the first research question.
Handling uncertainty in the EIA process
In the following subsections, the results concerning whether and how uncertainty handled in the EIA reports and hearings are presented to address the second research question.
Conclusion and discussion
In the following sections, conclusions are drawn and discussed, structured according to the two research questions:
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Is uncertainty acknowledged in EIA processes and how is it acknowledged?
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Are tools and approaches used to deal with uncertainty in EIA processes, and which tools and approaches are used?
Author statement
All work has been done by the sole author except proof reading by Proofreading Service UK.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work was made possible by participation in the Fulbright Arctic Initiative and funding from the Fulbright Commission. The Fulbright Commission had no involvement in the research or publication process.
Sanne Vammen Larsen is an Associate Professor at The Danish Centre for Environmental Assessment, Aalborg University.
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About us
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Sanne Vammen Larsen is an Associate Professor at The Danish Centre for Environmental Assessment, Aalborg University.