• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.113-125
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• 2011

Since the government of Korea (Ministry of Environment, MOE) introduced the policy applying 'Biotope-Area-Ratio-Indicator (BARI)' to huge residential land developments which Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) should be performed, MOE has come to have the necessity to apply the indicator concretely at the stage of Prior Environment Review System (PERS) and EIA in various types of large scale land development projects. This study was conducted with the aim of supporting the application of BARI and related decision making in various other types of EIA projects as well as residential development projects through remodeling the system to apply the indicator of the past. Through the analysis of the problems in applying the past BARI and experimental appraisals to 11 types of EIA projects, the results and implications as follows were drawn. First, it's possible to extend the range of applications of BARI, which has been applied to only residential land development project, to all kinds of projects with area-typed land use pattern out of environmental impact assessment target projects. Second, it's also possible to set a target value into which regional characteristics and differences among locational properties are reflected. In addition, it's come to be able to differentially apply the target value of BARI according to the condition of the existing site. Third, it's improved to be able to suggest a macroscopic target value at the stage of PERS and to set detailed target values in each detailed land use at the stage of EIA. The key point underlies inducing methodology to determine target values to secure more permeable land coverage ratio for detailed land use patterns at the stage of EIA by making it possible to calculate BARI of the present land cover condition of the EIA target projects.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.151-160
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• 2003

Analysis of carrying capacity and site suitability by the systematic application of environmental information an provide a basis for implementing environmentally sensitive and sustainable resource development policies. Based on the availability of public services and environmental and site-specific constraints, a Rural Residential Density Matrix was applied in Santa Cruz County, California, USA to assess the development potential of rural land parcels since 1980. In one case, the Matrix was applied to calculate the allowable development density on a site in Lompico planned for use as a Buddhist retreat center. These calculations revealed higher environmental sensitivity and lower carrying capacity than projected in the proposed plan. Under the constraints of the county's minimum acreage policies and insufficient developable land, the developer cancelled the proposed plan. This example suggests that application of the Matrix at the concept development stage would increase the effectiveness of the prior environmental review and environmental impact assessment (EIA) system in Korea.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.57-71
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• 2004

This study aims to review the environmental impact assessment systems of Japanese local governments, to compare its outcome with the systems of Korean local governments, and to suggest the development direction for the environmental impact assessment systems of Korean local governments based on the result. The study results showed that, first, due to distinction in the political systems of Japan and Korea, while Japan has bottom-up environmental impact assessment systems, Korea has topdown environment impact assessment systems. Second, although introduction of national systems on planning was put on hold as a future initiative, local governments including Tokyo and Saitama are experimenting evaluation procedures tailored to local features by legislating them as regulations. On the other hand, while 'prior environmental review system' was in effect as a national system, nothing was practiced at all by local governments. Third, in a total of 47 Japanese local governments, about 45 projects and 44 assessment items were added to local government environmental impact assessment only and designated as target projects and assessment items. Fourth, in both national and local environment impact assessment systems in Japan, screening procedures to determine assessment by separating into Type 1 projects and Type 2 projects and scoping procedures to discuss assessment items in advance were introduced and in effect. This Japanese EIA system may serve as a good reference to the Korean national and local government EIA systems.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.511-524
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• 2007

Korea has 30 years of experiences in environmental impact assessment (EIA). Although EIA includes sanitation-public health factor, considering health impacts, among 74 unit projects of 17 sections, health impacts haven't been properly considered or have been ignored in many cases. The increasing awareness on the importance of health impacts has triggered this study to seek an optimal introduction scheme of health impact assessment (HIA). The processes of EIA already include screening, scoping, analysis, impact assessment, consultation, document review, decision making and monitoring, in which they would be the essential parts of HIA. In this context, integrating HIA into the existing EIA process could be the most effective way to use the benefits in both legal and procedural processes existed and to avoid the confusion and overlapping since the close relationships between environment and health impacts might be. Furthermore, it is desirable that the existing sanitation-public health factor should be substituted by and extended to environment-health factor with sufficient determinants to properly consider health impacts. When considering the first step of HIA, the prospective and qualitative approach is suitable more than the retrospective and quantitative one due to the lack of database accumulated. Similarly, an approach based on epidemiology and toxicology could analyze the limited evidences and impacts related to human disease, whereas one based on socio-science and psychology could provide the effective means available for predicting how the people and community will act by the change of surroundings. Checklist approach with various and comprehensive health determinants focused on prospective and qualitative methods will be very useful for more convenient and progressive dissemination of HIA. Various checklist approaches of toolkits could be found from HIA documents elsewhere, for example Westminster Toolkit, and they would be helpful to figure out how to develop common procedures and health determinants for checklist, in which the unique characteristics on korean cultural and political context compared to abroad should be carefully considered since checklist would be the most basic and essential part of HIA. After the establishment of checklist and procedural processes, the pilot projects should be conducted. Main purpose of pilot projects is to apparently prove the effectiveness and profitability of HIA. Pilot projects should be implemented to decide the effectiveness and suitability of HIA for future projects, programs and policies, and should be provided as the positive cases that can be achieved through the proper implementation and progress.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.49-65
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• 2021

Although the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is continuously being advanced, the number of environmental disputes regarding it is still on the rise. In order to supplement this, it is necessary to analyze the accumulated complaint cases. In this study, through the analysis of complaint cases, it is possible to identify matters that need to be improved in the existing EIA stages as well as various damages and conflicts that were not previously considered or predicted. In the process, we dervied 'complaint-based data demands' that should be additionally examined to improve the EIA. To this end, a total of 348 news articles were collected by searching with combinations of 'environmental impact assessment' and a keyword for each of the six assessment groups. As a result of analysis of collected data, a total of 54 complaint-based data demands were suggested. Among those were 15 items including 'impact of changes in seawater flow on water quality' in the category of water environment; 13 items including 'area of green buffer zone' in atmospheric environment; 10 items including 'impact of soundproof wall on wind corridor' in living environment; 8 items including 'expected number of users' in socioeconomic environment, 4 items including 'feasibility assessment of development site in terms of environmental and ecological aspects' in natural ecological environment; and 4 items including 'prediction of sediment runoff and damaged areas according to the increase in intensity and frequency of torrential rain' in land environment. In future research, more systematic complaint collection and analysis as well as specific provision methods regarding stages, subjects, and forms of use should be sought to apply the derived data demands in the actual EIA process. It is expected that this study can serve to advance the prediction and assessment of EIA in the future and to minimize environmental impact as well as social conflict in advance.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.97-103
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• 2008

This study presented politic proposals and diverse utilization-type in coastal areas by analyzing results of reviewed related-statements of marine environment during the one year period of 2007 by Marine Environmental Impact Assessment Center. Total of 358 cases were reviewed, which was a significant increase from 270 in 2006. Consultation on the utilization of sea areas (CUSA) accounted for the largest number of 165 (46.1%) and it was followed by 104 cases of environmental impact assessment (EIA) (29.0%) and 89 cases of prior environmental review (PER) (24.9%). As such, evaluation statements (EIA+PER) related to consultations of the Ministry of Environment accounted for approximately 54% of the entire cases reviewed. To analyze the overall results of reviewing marine-related evaluation statements, utilization and planning were conducted by 47.9%, 38.4% and 13.7% in the South Sea, West Sea and East Sea of Korea, respectively. In evaluation statements (EIA+PER), port construction, industrial complex construction, urban management plan and road construction took up most of the part by 40.9%, 20.2%, 10.4% and 7.3%, respectively. In terms of CUSA-statement, it was evaluated that consultations were mostly carried out on use and reclamation of public water surface in coastal areas and on sea aggregate extraction process in EEZ. The largest number of plans for coastal use were established for Jeollanam-do, followed by Gyeongsangnam-do, Chungcheongnam-do, Gyeongsangbuk-do and Gyeonggi-do. In particular, development plans were concentrated on Jeollanam-do and Gyeongsangnam-do with stable marine environment and outstanding view of the nature. In most cases, these regions are adjacent to the areas designated as a sea area for environmental management and fisheries resources protection zone. Therefore, conflicts exist between development and preservation. Also, rather than random development, more detailed marine environmental impact assessment, gathering of public opinions and politic harmony are essentially required. For efficient coastal management and environmentally sound and sustainable development, fulfilling consistent and transparent coastal policies as well as active and reliable decision making to center on coastal environment by management bodies will be important.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.15-28
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• 2010

Because deterioration of air quality and urban heat island directly harm health of citizens, Health Impact Assessment (HIA) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for urban development projects needs to conduct analysis of their impacts objectively. This study aims to review appropriate methods for assessment of air quality used at each stage of urban development and to investigate prediction and assessment methods of urban heat island. In addition, by evaluating impacts of climate change following supposed urban construction performed in the central area of Korea on public health, it examines usefulness of HIA for urban construction. When urban heat island prediction and HIA method suggested in this study are applied to an imaginary city, they predict urban heat island properly and the impacts of climate changes on public health inside the city could be determined clearly by calculating life-climate index and bio-climate index related with thermal environment from the model.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.53-68
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• 1994

Initially the paper will explore the concept, evolution and utility of Sustainable Development in the broad context of its links to the EIA process by predicting in advance decisions being made attempts to balance the needs of environmental, economic and social objectives. The paper then considers how an evolving and improved EIA process and in particular with the emphasis increasingly riving from projects to polieies, plans and programmes, can provide q framework to operationalise Sustainable Development with the focus on cumulative impacts, making EIA "problem focussed" and linking policy, environmental planning and assessment. The paper then reviews some of the practical EIA tools and methods that can support the practical application of more susk inable forms of development. The paper concludes by considering the follow ups that are now occurring after the Reo Sumit and suggests that has a Key and powerful role to play in this process, whether at an institutional prettiest policy level.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.125-135
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• 2004

Environmental Impact Assessment(EIA) in Korea has been used to improve environmental conservation and decision-making. Since environmental impact statement(EIS) was introduced in 1981 with the promulgation of the Environmental Preservation Act in 1977, which replaced the Pollution Control Act legislated in 1963. With a rapid growth of environmental perception as well as the diversification of development activities, however, it has recently bring about a strong demand for a new assessment process related to the strategic level of policies, plan, programs. Method of this study includes analyses of the situation of local EIA and its problematic issues through survey and analysis of information and data, analysis of the level of environmental awareness of professionals and case studies including analysis of foreign strategic environmental assessment. Accordingly, I have elicited a concept of SEA. In addition, I have studied on costs of environmental assessment, and efficiency of internalization of HIA. The survey was carried between September and November 2003, and 177 professionals were asks to complete a questionnaire. As a result of questionnaire survey of environmental pundits, it revealed that 83.8% of participants were in favor of introduction of strategic assessment. This result demonstrated more or less higher approval rate than those of awareness survey done by the Ministry of Environment, i.e. 86.0% ayes, and 14.0% nays. 22.8% of participants agreed to the opinion; "For introduction of this system, earlier is better," 50% reported having an opinion such as, "Will introduce this system in an earliest possible time after correcting problems," 26.3% reported having an opinion such as, "Let's decide the time for introduction of this system after correcting problems first,' and 0.9% reported having an opinion, "it's too early to introduce this system." Specifically, the ratio of ayes on introduction of the system marked 72.8%, and it revealed that a majority of respondents have an opinion such as, "Will introduce this system in an earliest possible time after correcting problems." As means of solutions for the problem regarding the limits of applications that existed in SEA System, factors, such as collecting a wide variety of opinions, securing experts, and faithful implementation, etc. were reported important, and in addition to these factors, respondents revealed having opinions such as, consistent research and development, reflection of public interest, establishment of professional organization, enforcement of after-management service, expanding investments in large, systemizing reference materials, and encouraging public participation, etc. To improve problems involving with present EIA system, it has been identified through this study that SEA is efficient and useful. In order to have SEA introduced successfully, it has been cleared that internalization of effectiveness of environmental cost together with HIA must be accomplished.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.581-600
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• 2013

The current status of atmospheric environmental impact assessment (EIA) has been summerized and future prospective for effective and accurate atmospheric EIA has been proposed by reviewing available papers and reports for the atmospheric EIA. The number of reports for the EIA in the EIA support system which is operated by the Korean Environmental Institute have been dramatically decreased from 282 reports in 2008 to 113 reports in 2012 during recent five years. This is partially due to simplification of the EIA procedure, the contraction of the public development and economic recession. We analyzed details of the EIA report to review how actual atmospheric EIA has preformed according to the EIA guidelines from the Korean Ministry of Environment. The 264 reports of EIA published in 2011 and 2012 had been reviewed especially focusing on the atmospheric evaluation items such as meteorology, air quality measurement and modeling, odor measurement and modeling, wind corridor in urban planning, and climate change. In overall sense, the atmospheric EIA has been performed quite well by abiding the guidelines except for local meteorological data measurement, permit standard for air quality and wind corridor. The new approaches to improve the procedure of atmospheric EIA and to reflect future of national air quality standard of $PM_{2.5}$ have been proposed. The guidelines on how to evaluate the wind corridor, to implement atmospheric EIA for $PM_{2.5}$ permit, and how to acquire local meteorological data by combining local measurement and model prediction are required for the effective and future oriented atmospheric EIA.