Question: Illustrate EIA Consideration of alternatives in project site selection and use of

multiple criteria ranking and weighting in site selection for 1) gold mine and processing plant 2)
Sanitary landfill

Introduction

An EIA is a public process, which is used to identify, predict and assess the potential
environmental impacts of a proposed project on the environment (Glasson, 1999). The EIA is
used to inform decision-making personnel the impact of their decisions to enviroment. EIA, as a
national instrument, shall be undertaken for proposed activities that are likely to have a
significant adverse impact on the environment and are subject to a decision of a competent
national authority (principle 17, Rio declaration on Environment and Development, 1992).
Consideration of potential alternatives in the EIA process is one of the most critical elements of
the scoping phase (DEAT, 2002). Its importance is highlighted by Glasson et al. (1999) which
describes the consideration of alternatives as the ‘heart’ of EIA.

The concept of alternative can be defined as a possible course of action, in place of another, that
would meet the same purpose and need. The purpose of and need for a proposal should be clearly
stated as this provides the guideline for the identification of alternatives. It is generally
understood that the principles of sustainable development, would provide the framework for
evaluating the need and purpose of a proposal. For example, a current priority in Africa is the
eradication of poverty. Therefore, alternatives that create employment, improve basic
infrastructure or reduce mortality would rank higher when making comparative choices.
EIA and Project Site Selection (Gold Mine and Processing Plan)

Location alternatives for a mining venture could be considered for the entire proposal or for a
component of a proposal, for example the location of a processing plant. The processing plant is
considered under site layout alternatives. In the case of the Gold mine, processing sites in the
same geographic area are often referred to as alternative sites. This tends to be the more common
application as it is determined extensively by ore deposit availability and accessibility, also
taking into account detrimental effects to the sub lying locations.

Site selection can be put into three key categories which are environmental, economic and social
factors.

a) Environmental factors. In some cases it may not be possible to consider alternative

locations as there may be constraints to the activity location. For example, in the case of
mining, extraction can only occur at the identified location of an ore body and thus it is
not be feasible to consider alternative locations. In such a case other types of alternatives,
particularly the ‘no-go’ alternative assume importance in the EIA. The no-go entails there
is no alternative to site selection and detrimental effects can only be mitigated. It is key to
consider the ecology, which is with regards to proximity to designated sites and presence
of protected and/or endangered species.

b) Economic factors. Not all constraints are as obvious for the mining and processing plant
site selection. Glasson et al. (1999) refer to engineering constraints (complexity of design
required) that may prevent all locations from being considered. Similarly, there are
economic constraints, such as supply and availability of infrastructure that may influence
the choice of location for a project. It is prudent to consider highway access (construction
and operation).

c) Social factors. Location alternatives are particularly relevant in change of land use
applications as there are significant interference of flora and fauna and other social and
economic wellbeing of the proposed site. For social consideration, site alternatives are
 unlikely to be significant when a potential project under consideration forms part of an
overarching strategic planning initiative such as a national development. Site selection
process should include consideration of amenity, cultural or scientific value of the sites;
the local context, planning policy and guidance; existing land use; and feedback from the
Community Working Groups and other consultation. Presence/proximity to scheduled
monuments and listed buildings and parks should be noted. Other considerations include
proximity to residential properties; proximity to public rights of way; and sensitive land
uses, e.g. schools, hospitals, property and the number of landowners affected.

Ranking and Weighting Multi Criterion in Site Selection

A suitable plant location is of great help for a mining company to minimize the cost and
maximize the use of resources. An important part of the Environmental Impact Assessment
(EIA) process is to review the alternatives considered during the evolution of the project, and to
set out why they have been discarded in favour of preferred sites for development. Deat (2002),
propounds that multiple ranking refers to screening, prioritizing, ranking or selecting alternatives
based on human judgments from a finite set of alternatives usually conflicting criteria.

In order to select a suitable processing plant location from alternatives, decision makers must
consider a set of significant criteria (after ranking), including investment cost, human resources,
availability of gold ore from miners (artisanal and small scale), climate. Hence, plant location
selection problems can be treated as multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) problems.

In the multi-criteria models the weights of criteria play a very significant role and they have
different interpretations depending on context decision making, on multi-criteria analysis
methods (Choo et al., 1999). However, they usually provide the information about the relative
importance of the considered criteria. Attaching ranks to elicit weights by some formulas is more
reliable than just directly assigning weights to criteria. This is because usually even experts and
decision makers are more confident about the ranks of some criteria than their weights, and they
can agree on ranks more easily. Hence, it is concluded that usually ranking is easier than
weighting for non-expert or even experts. The great advantage of ranking weight methods is fact
that they rely only on ordinal information about criteria importance. They can be used for
instance in situations of time pressure, lack of knowledge, imprecise, incomplete information or
partial information

This follows that the decision maker may not be willing or able to provide exact estimations of
decision parameters. Also the group of decision makers may not be able to reach agreement on a
set of exact weights, so in such situation may be realistic to expect agreement only on a ranking
of weights. Moreover, the ranking methods are easy to use and simply to understand for decision
maker.
Case Study: Gold Processing Plant (Shamva, Zimbabwe and Wassa, Ghana)

Artisanal and small scale gold mining developments have exacerbated many environmental
problems such as mercury release, land devastation, visual intrusion (loss of aesthetic value), soil
degradation, water pollution among others. The recent developments in gold rush coupled with
the influx of foreign investors in Zimbabwe (Viega,2014), and the associated problems, have led
to public outcry for effective management of the sector or a complete ban. However, due to the
significant contribution the sector makes to the local and national economy, a complete ban
would be disastrous. Thus, the overall aim was to contribute to the process of finding a more
sustainable approach for the management of the sector in by focusing on site selection of a
centralized processing facility. The processing centre should be such so that miners do not have
to invest in expensive processing equipment, rather, the ore is taken to a specialised facility
where qualified operators extract the gold for a fee.

Viega et.al (2014) evaluated the performance of the Shamva Mining Centre, he notes that though
the project was successful in its incipient stage, it quickly became a fiasco because the capacity
of the mill installed could not meet the growing needs of the miners. This caused the miners to
return to their old ore processing practice that was detrimental to human and environmental
health. He also highlights similar problems in centralized processing centres at Tarkwa and Japa
in Ghana. In the case of Tarkwa, crushing and assaying centres were abandoned as several of the
facilities were located in areas where crushing and assaying were not needed. The case of Japa is
similar to the Shamva centre where high demand for service caused miners to wait for extended
periods, forcing them to return to their old practices. These shortcomings could have been
avoided if extensive research on demand and the location of the centres was carried out.

Selection Criteria Suitability Grouping

Unsuitable Less Suitable Suitable Most Suitable
Nearness to ASM Sites >10 000m 3 000 - 10 000m 1 000 - 3 000m <1 000m
Nearness to Roads >5 000m 1 000 - 5 000m 500 - 1 000m <500m
Nearness to Railways >5 000m 1 000 - 5 000m 500 - 1 000m <500m
Distance to Settlement <800m 800 - 1 000m 1 000 - 5 000m >5 000m
Distance from Tectonic Zones <750m 750 - 1 500m 1 500 - 5 000m >5 000m
Distance from Waterbodies <250m 250 - 500m 500 - 1 000m >1 000m
Slopes >15* 6-15* 2-6* <2*

Table 1: Selection criteria and suitability grouping (Adapted from the Journal of Sustainable
Mining, Ghana case Study)
{ASM – Artisanal and Small-scale Miners}

Table 1 above shows the values of the selection criteria. Based on the literature, two types of
datasets (namely slope and distances) were derived from the criteria grouping in a GIS
environment. This was necessary because the preferred location of the facility had to be on a
certain slope and certain distance from some of the selection criteria. However, at this stage, it
was difficult to practically integrate all the datasets into a single layer that shows suitable areas.
Thus, the derived datasets were reclassified and standardized into a common measurement scale
to enable data overlay. This measurement scale is what determines how suitable a particular
location (each cell) is for siting the processing facility. Higher values indicate locations that are
more suitable, while lower values indicate less suitable/unsuitable areas. The reclassification was
(0) for unsuitable areas, (1) for less suitable areas (2) for suitable areas and (3) for the most
suitable areas, based on Table 1.

After completing the matrix, the final weights were determined following three consecutive
steps: (1) computing the vector of criteria weights, (2) computing the matrix of options scored
and (3) ranking the options. The final matrix together with the weights for all seven selection
criteria is shown in Table 2 (below). After the weights were determined, the individual weighted
criteria were combined and overlaid in order to obtain a suitability map.

Criteria A B C D E F G AHP Weight

Distance to ASM sites (A) 1 2 3 5 6 7 9 0.406 40.6%
Distance to Roads (B) 1/2 1 3 4 5 7 8 0.251 25.1%
Distance to Railroads (C) 1/3 1/3 1 2 4 5 6 0.129 12.9%
Distance to Settlements (D) 1/5 ¼ 1/2 1 3 5 6 0.085 8.5%
Distance to Waterbodies 1/6 1/5 1/4 1/3 1 2 4 0.055 5.5%
(E)
Slopes (F) 1/7 1/7 1/5 1/5 1/2 1 3 0.043 4.3%
Distance to Fault zones (G) 1/9 1/8 1/6 1/6 1/4 1/3 1 0.032 3.2%

Table 2: Weighting (Adapted from the Journal of Sustainable Mining, Ghana)

*NOTE: AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process – A structured technique for organizing and
analyzing complex decisions using a pairwise comparison approach to allow accurate ordering
of priorities for decision making

Weighting and overlaying all the evaluated criteria resulted in an overall suitable index map for
siting the processing centres in the study area. An area of 332.1 km2 (13.7%) was classified as
unsuitable, 1655.7 km2 (68%) as less suitable; 429.7 km2 (17.7%) as suitable; and 15.6 km 2
(0.6%) of the total area as most suitable (Table 3 below).
 Selection Criteria Unsuitable (0) Less Suitable (1) Suitable (2) Most Suitable (3)
Km2 % Km2 % Km2 % Km2 %
Distance to ASM Sites 326.5 13.4 1376.9 56.6 531.5 21.8 198.3 8.1
Distance to roads 23.3 1.0 1318.8 54.2 486.9 20.0 604.2 24.8
Distance to railroads 2249.7 92.5 140.4 5.8 20.7 0.9 22.3 0.9
Distance to settlements 96.6 4.0 27.6 1.1 868.4 35.7 1440.6 59.2
Distance to tectonic zones 553.7 22.8 407.4 16.7 907.7 37.3 564.3 23.2
Distance to water bodies 149.3 6.1 127.1 5.2 250.3 10.3 1906.4 78.4
Slopes 33.6 1.4 459.0 18.9 1353.9 55.6 586.6 24.1

Table 3: Areal extent of suitability index for each selection criteria (Adapted from the Journal of
Sustainable Mining, Ghana)

Landfill is the most common method used to eliminate municipal solid waste in developing
countries. The location of landfills and the methods of disposing of solid waste at a site can
create serious environmental problems (Avery et al 1987). The greatest concerns regarding
landfill’s impact on the environment are related to its effects on ground water, surface water, air,
soil, as well as the odor produced and issues arising from the transportation of solid waste.
Landfills are still considered the most popular method of disposal for solid waste. The increasing
rate of population growth, improving standards of living, industrial growth and increasing
commercial activities are major factors behind the increase in the quantity of waste produced
around the world. About 95% of solid waste that is generated in the world is disposed of in
landfills (Scott et al 2007). The site selection process for landfill is considered to be one of the
most complex tasks related to solid waste management systems because many factors must be
taken into consideration. Examples of such factors include government and municipal funding,
government regulation, social and environmental factors, concerns for public health, growing
environmental awareness, reduced land availability for landfills and increasing political and
social opposition to the establishment of landfill sites. Careful consideration has to be made
taking into account all raised concerns.

Our study compared the suitability of 2 sites for the location of a landfill in Macheke, Zimbabwe.

Criteria Site A Site B

Roads and highway 4km 5km
Distance from Urban 15km 7km
centre
Power line 0.5km 1km
Surface Water 3km 1km

Construction requirements
Construction requirements Site A Site B

Cover soil Available Available

Site fencing unavailable unavailable
Waste deposing according to Yes NO
scientific methods
Supporting infrastructure Available Available

Conclusion

Mining is one of the largest end users of environmental resources and one of the largest polluters
of man-made and natural environments. The improvement in stewardship with regard to the
environment will indeed encourage greater environmental responsibility and place greater value
on the welfare of future generations. There is no doubt that Environmental Impact Assessment
methods contribute significantly in achieving the goal of sustainable development.
The role of alternatives is to find the most effective way of meeting the need and purpose of the
proposal, either through enhancing the environmental benefits of the proposed activity, and or
through reducing or avoiding potentially significant negative impacts (Finnveden, 2005). Starting
a mine involves complex decisions and the increased significance of environmental issues has
further complicated the situation. Society is not just concerned with economic growth and
development, but also the long-term effects on living standards for both present and future
generations.

Roskowska (2013) argues however useful, judgments of the decision makers are frequently
vague and their preferences as well weight cannot be exactly evaluated with numerical values in
practice. The “true” weights of criteria remain unknown in practice. Even if the elicitation of
precise weights is possible, it would probably be time-consuming and difficult and therefore
impractical. The rank ordering weighting methods provide approximations of “true” weights of
criteria when rank ordering information is known.

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