PAPER REVIEW-2

Title of the paper: The quality of environmental impact

statements and environmental impact assessment
practice in Bangladesh

PREPARED BY
AVIJEET CHAKRABORTY
DATE: 7 July 2018
Review:
The title of the paper under review is “The quality of environmental impact
statements and environmental impact assessment practice in Bangladesh” and was
written by S.M. ZobaidulKabir and Salim Momtazfrom University of Newcastle, Australia
in June 2012.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the quality of environmental impact

statements (EISs) and performance of environmental impact assessment (EIA) practice in
Bangladesh.

In this study, 30 EIA reports of development projects from various sectors were reviewed
between 1994 and 2008. A set of review criteria (review package by Lee and Colley 1992)
was used to assess the quality of EISs in Bangladesh. After the assessment of quality, face-
to-face in-depth interviews were conducted to identify the underlying factors influencing
the quality of EISs in Bangladesh.

Some of the major issues identified in this paper in the application of EIA in
Bangladesh are as follows:

 This study showed that out of 30 sampled EISs of development projects,overall

66%of EISs are graded satisfactory and 34% of EISs are graded unsatisfactory. The
study was conducted by dividing the EIS by four area including 1) Description of
development and baseline, 2)Identification and evaluation of keyimpacts, 3)
Alternatives and environmental mitigation, 4) Presentation of EIS and
communication
 In case of 1) Description of development and baseline,17% of EISs are poor or
unsatisfactory. However, there are still deficiencies found in some tasks. In this
study, although allof the sampled EISs contained baseline data, the coverageand
the quality of baseline information tended to be poor.Also methods used for data
collection, timing and durationof survey, and source of data are not clearly
mentioned.
 In case of2)Identification and evaluation of key impacts, 50% of EISs found to
bepoor and very poor.Omissions and deficiencies occurringin this area relate to
the inadequate coverage of impactsidentified, inadequate explanation of methods
used topredict and evaluate the impacts, and failure to adequatelyinclude the
community in the EIA process.
 In case of 3) Alternatives and environmental mitigation, more than 27% of EISs
are poor and very poor in this area.Common omissions and deficiencies include
poor description ofsignificant adverse impacts to be mitigated, lack ofjustification

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 of mitigation measures, lack of publicinvolvement in implementing mitigation
measures, lackof adequate mitigation measures for social impacts, andlack of
justification of how the mitigating measures wouldbe successful in protecting the
environment. Also,monitoring mechanisms are not always properly
describeddetailing parameters to be monitored and methods to beused.
 In case of4) Presentation of EIS and communication 80%of EISs are graded
satisfactory and above and 20% EISsare unsatisfactory.

Following recommendations were suggested in the paper to improve EIA process

of Bangladesh:

 To improve the quality of EISs, this study recommendsthat it is important to

change the proponent’s attitude in theallocation of adequate funds and time to
prepare a goodEIS.
 The TOR must beprepared with adequate consultation of DOE (Departmentof
Environment) before conducting the EIA study.
 Theprovision of codes of ethics and an accreditation systemcan force consultants
to prepare a good quality of EISs.
 Thedevelopment and dissemination of adequate best practiceguidelines for
preparation of EISs will enable both theproponents and consultants to improve the
quality of EISsin Bangladesh.

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