• Journal of environmental and Sanitary engineering
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• v.19 no.4 s.54
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• pp.34-47
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• 2004

Although Environmental Impact Assessment(EIA) in Korea has been improved markedly over the past two decades, by enlarging the range of projects for assessment, instituting pub lic participation and environmental monitoring, and similar measures, it remains deficient in its coverage of human health in Environmental Impact Statements(EISs). Health Impact Assessment(HIA) can supply the necessary correctives. HIA is a combination of procedures, methods and tools by which a policy, programme, projects or legislative procedure may be judged for its potential effects on the health of a population, and the distribution of these effects within it. The principle of health protection is, however, established as a primary concern in EIA processes, in practice health is scarcely mentioned or the discussion is limited to a description of effects through the biophysical environment. The whole range of possible effects on health, including those mediated by socio-economic factors is often ignored, and no effective mechanism are in place to successfully incorporating health criteria and expertise into environmental, assessment(EA) that include ElA, SEA. These are foremost among the current issues facing EIA in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.8 no.6 s.31
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• pp.520-524
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• 2005

It is consequential to reduce the environmental impact of a product for sustainable development in 21st Century. In the field of transportation, especially, the technological market concerned about reduction and assessment of greenhouse gas emission is expected to be extended. The LCA gas been esteemed and utilized as a realistic alternative greenhouse gas emission is expected to be extended. The LCA has been esteemed and utilized as a realistic alternative to improve the environment by the assessment of environmental impacts. In this study, simplified life cycle assessment(S-LCA), was performed to analyze the environmental impacts quantitatively, which were produced through the life cycle of a electric motor unit(EMU). The object of the present work is rth investigate main parameters of environmental impacts and to establish the plans to improve the environment impact of EMU. As a result of quantitative assessment for environmental impact and manufacturing, the EMU carbody made of SUS showed acidification(AD) and marine water aquatic ecotoxicity(MAET) the most, while that made of Mild showed high impact of global warning(GW) and abiotic resources depletion(ARD). For the SUS EMU, the high AD and MAET impact is occurred by the discharged pollutants during acid-washing process. Also, high value of GW and ARD for Mild EMU is resulted from the consumption of iron ore, coal and crude oil during manufacturing. Therefore, the environment impact of carbody would be decreased by enhancing of energy efficiency and the lightening the weight of it.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.132-143
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to identify the accomplishments and limits of the local governments' environmental impact assessment operation system and to propose a policy plan to improve it through an analysis of the current status of the operations by local governments. As the research method, based on an understanding of the basic purpose and concept of the local government's environmental impact assessment, the current status of environmental impact assessment by major local governments such as Seoul, Jeju, Busan, Daejeon, etc. is analyzed and in-depth interviews with public officials in charge are conducted. Through the extensive discussions, the current situation and the problems are identified. The accomplishments of the local governments' operation of environmental impact assessment are: it is possible, first, to select evaluation targets and items in accordance with regional characteristics; second, to continuously strengthen the management and monitoring the evaluation result after through its own follow-up control. The limits revealed are; first, internal organization problems, which are largely due to the fact that the project approvers and the environmental impact assessment consultants are the same; second, poor cooperation system between the department of environmental impact assessment and other departments; third, lack of professionalism in the working forces; and forth, a limited pool of the skilled judges; and last, it was found that there could be frequent problems of overlapping regulation during coordinating target projects and evaluation contents.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.444-455
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• 2015

In relation to the utilization and disposal of dredged sediment caused by coastal dredging project, we diagnosed the status of legal standard and system, and proposed the improvement plan. Dredging costal sediment distinguished the usage and the disposal by the Standard for the Beneficial Usage of Dredged Sediment. The site where disposal has been completed could be used as a site for developmental project. In case of the usage of dredged sediment for reclamation, we found that the adaptation of the Standard for Beneficial Usage of Dredged Sediment is appropriate for reclamation considering the characteristic of soil, the differences of variables, and the distinction of standard analysis methods. The current the Standard for Beneficial Usage of Dredged Sediment requires the improvement with the usage of dredging coastal sediment in the following. First, the Standard needs to include the standard of the discrimination for reclamation. Second, the current Standard is necessary to be divided by two levels, it needs to be mitigated considering human health risk. Third, it is necessary to consider both the marine environmental impact assessment and mitigation plan near coastal dredging area.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.252-276
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• 2024

The review of environmental impact assessment reports is a crucial process to ensure the expertise and objectivity of the content and procedures of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Since the amendment of the Environmental Impact Assessment Act in 1997, a single national research institute has independently and exclusively supported this role based on legal grounds. In 2021, in an effort to secure a more diverse range of review opinions, there was a movement towards decentralization and diversification of review institutions. However, concerns have been raised about the limitations in the independence and consistency of these review opinions. Meanwhile, with the introduction of OpenAI's ChatGPT in November 2022, the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has increased, becoming common in daily life, work, and research. This has led to discussions about the potential use of generative AI to leverage existing EIA review capabilities and ensure a balanced range of opinions from the recently decentralized and diversified institutions. This study aims to propose a pilot implementation and future methodological and institutional expansion of generative AI to support the review of environmental impact assessment reports. To achieve this, a generative AI system was initially developed and tested to support the review of content related to Health Impact Assessment within the EIA framework. The practical applications of this pilot system were documented. Additionally, by specifying the procedures, content, and stakeholders involved in the EIA review process, this paper suggests considerations for its expansion from both methodological and institutional perspectives.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.73-83
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• 1993

Increasing concern for the environment in Korea has led to the demand that major policies and large-scale development projects be subjected to detailed impact assessment. This paper reports on the state of data related to the prediction of the environmental impact (EIA) to emphasize the importance of data quality. Environmental impact statements (EIS) consulted with the Ministry of Environment of Korea were analyzed from 1981 through 1992. Many of assessors used existing data and collected supplementary data from field survey. Most of the results of EIA are presented directly or summarized on maps and as graphics. For the national purpose, large source of quality-controlled data such as atmospheric data have been developed, However, there are the deficiency in data to analyze the impact of human activity, and data gaps and incompatibilities among systems. Consequently, the development of data bank systems including computer database and remotely-sensed satellite data is required to improve the quality of data which are relevant to EIA. The data bank system should be organized meaningfully in minimum time with a least cost, and measurement standards must be made explicit. Geographical information systems (GIS) are applicable to the graphic presentation or to the impact prediction model.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.25-37
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• 2000

This paper presents a study of hydrological and hydraulic model applications in environmental impact statements which were submitted during recent years in Korea. In many cases (almost 70 %), the hydrological and hydraulic changes were neglected from the impact identification processes, even if the proposed actions would cause significant impacts on those environmental items. In most cases where the hydrological and hydraulic impacts were predicted, simple equations were used as an impact prediction tool. Computer models were used in very few cases(5%). Even in these few cases, models were improperly applied and thus the predicted impacts would not be reliable. The improper applications and the impact neglections are attributed to the fact that there are no available model application guidelines as well as no requirements by the review agency. The effects of mitigation measures were not analyzed in most cases. Again, these can be attributed to no formal guidelines available for impact predictions until now. A brief guideline is presented in this paper. This study suggested that the model application should be required and guided in detail by the review agency. It is also suggested that the hydrological and hydraulic items shoud be integrated with the water quality predictions in future, since the non-point source pollution runoff is based on the hydrologic phenomena and the water quality reactions on the hydraulic nature.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.357-365
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• 2010

This study evaluated current status of marine sand mining and related assessment systems in Korea for supporting effective policy development. The estimated total deposit of sand was ca. 10 billion $m^3$, while the estimated minable amount was ca. 5.5 billion $m^3$, in which marine sand accounted for 21%. The proportion of marine sand to the total mined aggregates has steadily increased by 15% in 1992 to 28% in 2002, but recently slightly decreased. Marine sand mining is regulated under a consultation system on the coastal development according to the "Marine Environmental Management Act". During 2002-2009, a total of 184 million $m^3$ of marine sand was mined, and the annual amount ranged from 17,440,000-33,698,000 $m^3$ the coastal area accounted for 64.5% and the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) 35.5%. In the coastal area, the major area supplying the marine sand was Gyeonggi Bay (>62%) followed by some southwestern coastal areas. The South and the West EEZ explained 23.9% and 11.6% of the total mined sand. The extent of marine sand mining in Korea was evaluated to be greater compared with other countries. Large-scale concentrated and repeated sand mining can damage environmental changes and ecology with long-term accumulated impacts.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.413-424
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• 2021

Health impact assessment in the environmental impact assessment is conducted to determine whether to exceed the standard of each single substance and to establish appropriate reduction measures. In some development projects, although all substances in risk assessment meet the standard, exposure concentration is very close to it. However, considering the cumulative exposure of all substances, health effects are likely to occur considerably severer than those of individual substances, so it is necessary to prepare a concrete and improved methodology for integrating evaluation of emissions to identify the health effects actually exposed to receptors of living things. This study established the definition of cumulative risk assessment through overseas advanced cases and domestic and foreign literature reviews, and proposed a methodology for utilizing cumulative risk assessment considering health effects on multiple substances when developing industrial complexes. Applied by the proposed methodology, integrated indicators forfourtypes of hazardous heavy metals (Ni, Cr⁶⁺, Cd, As) emitted from industrial complexes were calculated, and applicability was tested with case of the industrial complex development projects conducted over the last decade (2011-2020).

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.139-155
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• 2006

The introduction of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) has strengthened and extended the value of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as a fundamental tool for sustainable development. In particular, SEA helps to overcome the limitation of project EIA as a stand alone approach that is applied relatively late in the decision making cycle. SEA is applied to proposals of policy, plan, and/or programme when major alternatives are open. In Korea, similar to SEA, the Prior Environmental Review System (PERS) was introduced to overcome the limitations of the EIA, by checking the environmental impacts on major policy and administrative actions in the early stage of decision making process. SEA appears in various national, regional and international laws. SEA is addressed specifically in the UNECE SEA protocol to the Espoo Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a transboundary context, as well as the European Commission SEA Directive (2001/42/EC). SEA is a valuable tool for integrating sustainability decisions into country's policies, plans and programmes. This paper reviews the policy direction for implementation of the SEA and efficient Environmental Assessment (EA) through integration of the PERS and the EIA.