The consideration of water resources within environmental impact assessment process in Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Environmental Sciences Department, Faculty of Science at Damietta, Mansoura University, New Damietta City, PO Box 103, Egypt

Abstract

Water impact assessment (WIA) is a sub-discipline of environmental impact assessment (EIA),
focusing on potential impacts of a proposed development on the water environment. This study aimed
to evaluate "how well" the EIA process is working in practice, particularly for water resources section.
Forty randomly selected environmental impact statements (EISs) produced between 2000 and 2007
were reviewed for the quality of addressing water resources by using a quality review package. The 40
EISs were randomly selected for various project types including industry, tourism, infrastructure,
energy, landfill and agriculture. The review concluded that about 60% of the EISs sampled were found
to be of satisfactory quality in assessing potential impacts on water environment. WIA proved to be
poorer in quality in relation to EISs overall quality. Scoping, alternatives, impact predication,
significance evaluation and monitoring proved to be the main weakness areas for WIA. It is inferred
that WIA is less problematic for certain development categories (i.e., energy and infrastructure) than
others. The paper identified main strengths and shortcoming regarding assessing potential impacts of
proposed developments upon water resources.

Keywords