• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.467-483
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• 2007

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a kind of planning technique to seek ways to minimize environmental impact, a scheme to encourage sustainable development. With the launch of the Ministry of Environment in 1980, the EIA was introduced in Korea. Its full operation was initially driven by regulations on documenting EIA reports in 1981, which was piloted as a decision-making scheme where final decision were made at the development department after considering opinions suggested by the Ministry of Environment. At that time, dominance of the economic logic overwhelmed environ-friendly opinions, but thanks to the fourth revision of the Environmental Conservation Law in 1986, private projects came to be included on the EIA list. This was a turning point for the EIA to become a regulatory system. Local governments are also conducting the EIA regardless of the national-level EIA. In order to prevent and resolve increasingly severe environmental problems in Seoul in advance due to various construction projects, the Seoul Metropolitan Government, for the first time as a local government in Korea, legislated city decrees to introduce the EIA which has been underway from September 1, 2002. In particular, the Seoul government, unlike the Ministry of Environment, has included construction works on the list of evaluation projects, adopting the scoping and screen procedure scheme. In addition, complementing operational setbacks, the city government has revised and implemented decrees and enforcement laws on the Impact Assessment on Environment, Transportation and Disasters by shortening the consultation period, eliminating the submission of reports on construction, and expanding the waiver requirements in consultation over the reports. Therefore, development measures for the EIA scheme of the Seoul Metropolitan Government will be the target of the research. To that end, the up-to-date data of the Ministry of Environment, the Seoul government and local governments was collected, and latest materials from the EU, previous research and the Internet were gathered for analyses. By doing so, the flow of the EIA was reviewed, and the EIA schemes of local governments under the national EIA were analyzed. Furthermore, based on the Seoul government's recent data on the EIA based on the decrees, the background and legislation of the Seoul government's EIA were analyzed along with the developments for the environmental organizations. Setbacks were derived from the implementation period, evaluation procedures, consultation period and details of the EIA, and corresponding development measures were proposed.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.226-240
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• 2022

Local governments over a certain size in Republic of Korea may conduct Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) considering regional characteristics if it is necessary, in accordance with Article 42 of the 「Environmental Impact Assessment Act」. However, it was investigated that the number of local government EIA operation in many local governments was less than initial expectations. In order to improve it, the status of ordinances and consultation guidelines which are different for each local government need to be compared, and the institutional issues forthe relevant local governments must be found considering regional characteristics. Furthermore, detailed regulation and guidance on the local government EIA procedure should be included in the consultation guidelines and related information need to be provided. In this study, focusing on the case of Incheon Metropolitan City, the status of local government EIA ordinances in metropolitan cities and provinces with a similar condition was investigated, and the types and scope of target projects were compared and analyzed. In addition, consultation guidelines forIncheon Metropolitan City were written, and improvements on the procedure flow and overall schedule designation derived from the process were presented. In the case of Incheon Metropolitan City, there were no detailed information officially announced regarding the regulations of the local government EIA ordinance and follow-up management, so the administrative system of the local government needed to be reinforced in this field. Meanwhile, considering the status of local environment and geography, some target project types were deemed necessary to be added: port construction projects, water resource development projects, railroad construction projects, and military facilities installation projects. The results of this study will provide useful information to local governments which want to improve their operation effectiveness by reorganizing the local government EIA system and preparing specific guidelines.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.322-333
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• 2018

This study was carried out to measure atmospheric environmental improvement effect and estimate its social benefit of thermal power plants through Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for quantitative analysis about operational performances of EIA. In this study, 'EIA outcome' is defined as whether or not the system is implemented, therefore, environmental standard to be followed by each project and consultation contents were compared. In total 60 cases of thermal power plant construction projects that have been consulted over the past 10 years since 2010, major air pollutants have been significantly reduced after the implementation of EIA. The $PM_{10}$ reduced annual 3,745 tons, $NO_2$ by 74,569 tons, and $SO_2$ by 37,647 tons, which were estimated at approximately 240 billion won~5 trillion 967 billion won per year for social benefit. This means the total cost of power plant operations will be cut to 7 trillion 192 billion won~178 trillion 994 billion won over a 30-year period. The reduced amount of air pollutants emitted by energy generation facilities across the country is worth 50%, and its economic value is larger than the annual Current Health Expenditure in Korea. This is meant by the fact that all projects are subject to uniform criteria under the existing relevant regulation, but that each project plans are optimized according to the characteristics of target areas and projects through the process of EIA.

• 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.28 no.3
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• pp.312-331
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• 2019

An offshore waste disposal facility refers to a landfill site for final landfilling of stabilized inorganic solid waste such as land and marine waste incineration materials, and the aim of such a facility is to solve the problem of insufficient waste disposal space on land and create and develop environmentally friendly marine spaces. The purpose of this study is to prepare guidelines for the construction of offshore waste disposal facilities, which reflect the need and importance of paying sufficient heed to environmental considerations from the initial stage of the project, in order to investigate, predict, and assess how such guidelines will affect the marine environment in relation to the construction of offshore waste disposal facilities, with the goal of minimizing the impact on and damage to the environment. For the purpose of this research, guidelines focusing on the construction of offshore waste disposal facilities were derived through an analysis of domestic cases and similar foreign cases and an assessment of their level of compliance with existing EIA guidelines through the operation of a discussion forum. In order to review the EIA report on similar cases in Korea, 17 EIA documents (2005~2016) for dredged soil dumping areas and ash ponds of thermal power plants were analyzed to investigate the status of marine organisms, marine physics, marine water quality, and marine sediment and to understand what types of problems can occur and what improvement measures can be taken. The purpose of these guidelines were to minimize damage to the marine environment by promoting EIA protocols in accordance with scientific and systematic procedures, to reduce the consultation period related to projects, to resolve social conflicts, and to reduce economic costs.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.129-140
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• 2022

Environmental impact assessment on development projects is a process in which various stakeholders derive consultations by reflecting project characteristics and regional environmental status, and implementation of consultations is a prerequisite for securing sustainability of the local environment. The business plan can be changed to respond to changes in social and environmental conditions. And the business plan for which the environmental impact assessment consultation has been completed, it can be changed as a systematically prepared procedure (called Consultations on Amendment). As a result of investigating and analyzing the current status and major changes in the development project, Consultations on Amendment in industrial complexes were the most common, and the environmental impact is increasing accordingly. As the results of the analysis of operational status and the case studies, the main causes of Consultations on Amendment in industrial complex can be summarized into three categories: (1) formal demand forecasting for tenant industries, (2) excessive omission and simplification of administrative procedures under the Special Act, and (3) the use of an expedient change consultation system to facilitate environmental impact assessment consultation and shorten the period. This study proposes the following three measures to prevent the deterioration of the environmental impact assessment function due to frequent consultations on industrial complex changes; (1) Ensuring residents' participation procedures for Consultations on Amendment that changes important matters, (2) Reasonable revision of the "Simplification of Industrial Complex Procedures Act" to enhance the feasibility of industrial complex development plans and locations, (3) Development of evaluation criteria and methods for verification of real demand for objective demand management for industrial complexes, and (4) Preparation of a review guideline for Consultations on Amendment.