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Public participation is an important aspect of Environmental Assessment (EA) processes where the public can have an influence on decisions about development affecting them or their surrounding environment. A case study was conducted on the Wuskwatim Generating Station and Transmission Line Project EA process in order to identify barriers to participation faced by Aboriginal publics. Nine general barrier types were identified including: resource deficiencies, accessibility, information deficiencies, communication barriers, inadequate consultation, timing and scheduling constraints, lack of trust, lack of understanding, and coercion and control of dissent. The findings indicate most barriers faced by Aboriginal publics were procedural in nature and may be addressed through improvements in the design and implementation of participatory processes. A number of interrelationships were noted among barrier types suggesting that barriers to participation cannot be addressed in an isolated manner. Recommendations to improve future EA process and areas requiring further research are also discussed.

Public participation is an important aspect of Environmental Assessment (EA) processes where the public can have an influence on decisions about development affecting them or their surrounding environment. A case study was conducted on the Wuskwatim Generating Station and Transmission Line Project EA process in order to identify barriers to participation faced by Aboriginal publics. Nine general barrier types were identified including: resource deficiencies, accessibility, information deficiencies, communication barriers, inadequate consultation, timing and scheduling constraints, lack of trust, lack of understanding, and coercion and control of dissent. The findings indicate most barriers faced by Aboriginal publics were procedural in nature and may be addressed through improvements in the design and implementation of participatory processes. A number of interrelationships were noted among barrier types suggesting that barriers to participation cannot be addressed in an isolated manner. Recommendations to improve future EA process and areas requiring further research are also discussed.

This thesis concerns research into the environmental aspects of the photochemical machining (PCM) industry, involving measurement, analysis, benchmarking, and reducing adverse environmental impacts. The environmental audit of a PCM company found that the likely significant environmental impacts are the use of ferric chloride etchant, solvents and water. A comparison of the environmental performance of two UK PCM companies showed that there were big contrasts in etchant utilisation and solvent and water consumption, indicating that steps could be taken to reduce these impacts. A study to assess the feasibility of using laser direct imaging (LDI), a cleaner technology in photoresist imaging, found that LDI could meet the technical requirements of the PCM industry. For LDI to be economically feasible, the reliability has to be high and maintenance cost has to be low. Audit surveys of PCM companies world-wide regarding etchant utilisation and solvent consumption indicated that: (1) There is a vast difference between the performance of companies and companies that regenerate etchants were more efficient in their FeCl3 utilisation. The industrial best practice for FeCl3 utilisation is 837%. (2) Chlorination was the most popular regeneration method but most companies would use a more environment-friendly system at a higher overall cost. Regarding waste disposal, most companies sent liquid waste etchant for reclaim or recycle. (3) Half of the PCM companies no longer use solvents, and with the development of liquid aqueous-based resists, it is envisaged that PCM practitioners could eliminate the use of solvents in the near future. Lastly, an investigation into the feasibility of using oxygen gas in regenerating FeCI3 showed that the regenerated etchant could produce good quality etchings. This system is also the second cheapest. Therefore, it is a good option for the PCM companies as the cost of regeneration is not too expensive and it is environment-friendly.

The pursuit of efficiency and effectiveness in environmental assessment (EA) processes has prompted the introduction of a promising, second-generation process: Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). In order to learn about SEA practice and identify opportunities for improvement of SEA, this research examined the ongoing Western Newfoundland Offshore Area SEA. Analysis was conducted on data obtained from documents, observations, and interviews with participants in the case study SEA to determine if meaningful participation had occurred, participants’ learning outcomes, and recommendations for future practice. The results show that the principles of meaningful public consultation were not in place, resulting in dissatisfaction with the participatory process and limited learning amongst participants. The meetings also veered from some of the important elements of a SEA (e.g., examining broad alternatives). Variance from the basic principles of SEA and meaningful public consultation demonstrated a lack of commitment to conducting an effective and influential strategic assessment.

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No description available.

Mining has left many long-lasting effects, often negative. Mining continues to this day and questions persist; “what are the legacies of mining, to what extent do our approval and assessment processes consider these effects, are we learning from our past experiences and how can we amplify our learning?” To answer these questions I interviewed people from the mining community of Snow Lake, Manitoba as well as mining and assessment experts from across Canada. Data collected though document analysis and semi-structured interviews with 24 participants were analyzed using mining legacy, EA, and transformative learning frameworks. Results reinforce a suite of negative legacy effects identified in the literature. EA may be the best tool we currently have for long-term planning but data show it is unable to fully consider legacy effects. Learning is important for moving towards sustainability; however, a community’s economic dependence and mining friendly culture can act as barriers to learning. / May 2016

To achieve a sustainable development, impacts onbiodiversity of urbanisation, infrastructure, land use changesand other developments must be considered on a landscape andregional scale. Landscape ecology can provide a conceptualframework for the assessment of consequences of long-termdevelopment processes like urbanisation on biodiversity on alandscape scale, and for evaluating the impacts of alternativeplanning scenarios. The aim of this study was to explore theeffects of habitat quality, quantity and connectivity on forestbird diversity in an urban-rural gradient. The purpose of theanalyses was to develop knowledge and methods for integratingbiodiversity issues in planning and assessments in anurbanising environment, on landscape and regional scales. The study area was situated in and around Stockholm, thecapital of Sweden, covering the city centre, suburbs andperi-urban areas. Data on breeding forest birds were collectedthrough bird censuses in an urban-suburban gradient. In orderto embrace also the peri-urban areas for a more completeurban-rural gradient, data on two fragmentation-sensitiveforest grouse species were obtained through a questionnaire tohunters in the whole study area. Response variables in theanalyses were forest bird species richness and diversity,relative species richness and occurrence of single sensitivespecies like selected sedentary forest birds, including theforest grouse species, and red list species. Habitat quality,quantity and connectivity were analysed using available data onabiotic conditions, including urban disturbances, andvegetation in geographical information systems. In addition, afield study on vegetation structure and composition wasperformed in a subset of the smaller sample sites.Relationships between the response variables and habitatquality, quantity and connectivity were explored usingstatistical methods like multivariate statistics and regressionmodelling. Further, for some models, spatial dependencies werequantified and accounted for. When habitat models wereretrieved, they were used for spatial predictions of habitatsuitability. They were also applied on future planningscenarios in order to predict and assess the impacts onsensitive species. In the urban-rural gradient, the foreststructure and composition changed, so that in more urban areas,coniferous forest on rich soils, wet forests and wetlandsbecame less abundant and more scattered. Sensitive birdspecies, tied to these habitat types, were shown to besensitive to habitat fragmentation caused by urbanisation.Large, well-connected habitat patches and aggregations ofsuitable habitat in the landscape had a higher probability ofoccupancy when compared to other patches. For the forest grousespecies, effects of car traffic added to the explanation oftheir distribution. By contrast, deciduous forest was stillquite common in predominantly urban areas, due to both latechanges in land use and a history of human preferences. Certainred listed bird species tied to deciduous forest did not seemto be affected by isolation, and also occurred in suitablehabitats in some highly urbanised areas. Furthermore, relativespecies richness in the urban-suburban gradient was related tomulti-layered deciduous forest habitats with a large amount ofdead wood. Such habitats were associated with natural shorelineand with old pastures and parks. From the derived statisticalmodels, describing the relationships between sensitive speciesand environmental variables, predictive habitat maps could becreated for the present situation and for planning scenarios.The predictions of the impacts on habitats of sensitive speciesmade it possible to quantify, integrate and visualise theeffects of urbanisation scenarios on aspects of biodiversity ona landscape scale.

The need to strengthen the role of environmental and health considerations in decision-making processes is increasingly recognized by the Canadian government and industry-based organizations. Integrating human health into environmental assessments (EAs) at the earliest stage is critical for identifying and managing potentially adverse effects. The World Health Organization states health depends on our ability to understand and manage the interaction between human activities and the physical and biological environment. We have the knowledge for this but have failed to act on it. In light of this shortfall, the primary objectives of this research are to evaluate the scope of health within EA, and to evaluate the state-of-practice with regard to the incorporation of human health impacts into the EA process within Canadas Northern natural resource sector. The adopted methodology combines both a mail-out questionnaire survey of practitioner and administrator experiences with EA across the North, as well as semi-structured interviews with health professionals. The results confirm the importance of human health integration in northern EA; however, in practice, human health or human health impacts are receiving inconsistent and superficial treatment with very little agreement as to the scope of health issues in EA. Project-based assessments are often limited to the investigation of the biophysical impacts and neglect to consider the social and cultural effects, and broader determinants of health. In cases where broader social health issues are addressed, attention seems to be limited to those impacts for which the proponents have direct control over, notably employment and business opportunities. Subsequently, the performance of northern EAs is often less than satisfactory, and improvements are required in the EA process to correct this. Barriers to effective integration were found to include an incomplete understanding of the scope of health in EA; difficulties identifying causal links between project actions, environmental change and human health; the absence of standardized procedures; as well as economic and temporal barriers. Adapting the EA process to the specific needs of the North, including local culture and customs, and diverse knowledge systems is therefore necessary for EA practice to be successful. The research results contribute to a larger project to increase the understanding and effectiveness of health and EA systems, with specific attention on the Canadian North.