Ny arbeidsgruppe 143

Publisert 3. september 2009 av Helge Moen

Amy Oen, NGI er oppnevnt som norsk representant i WG 143 og Gudveig B. Nordal, Drammen havn er oppnevnt som norske representanter i WG 143: PIANC Working Group 143 (EnviCom) on "Screening evaluation of environmental effects of navigation and infrastructure projects". Les mer om arbeidsgruppen her:

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EnviCom WG 143

Terms of Reference

Screening Evaluation of Environmental

Effects of Navigation and Infrastructure Projects

Background

Working Group (Envicom) 10 (Environmental risk assessment in dredging and

dredged material disposal) outlined a procedure to give a scientific basis for

making a decision when a potential high risk has been assessed during previous

screening or environmental impact assessment. The report did not consider the

initial screening evaluation. As a consequence it did not identify the range of

specific events and pathways to environmental impact that might arise. A new

report is therefore required to fill this gap and at the same time provide a

transparent method for the project screening process.

Scope

Members of Envicom WG 10 and Envicom consider that a report is therefore

required to outline the potential pathways of environmental effects from

navigation and infrastructure projects (not only dredging issues) and provide a

methodology for a screening evaluation taking an holistic view of the

environment (including economic and societal aspects) as well as the feasibility

of any technical solutions. The method developed should, where possible, be

compatible with the ‘Working with Nature' philosophy, take account of existing

national screening methods for environmental effects and provide a transparent

high level evaluation process. The screening evaluation therefore requires after

project need and objectives have been established:

• An understanding of the system in which the project is to be undertaken

to identify the environment related functional changes;

• An holistic ecosystem approach;
• Consideration of various lines and weights of evidence; and
• The requirement to only use existing readily available information.

In such a high level evaluation the role of expert knowledge of the system, the

understanding of the project components and their different construction

techniques as well as stakeholder consultation to identify possible win-win

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opportunities will be important. Thus documentation of the screening evaluation

assumptions will form an essential part.

Within the report, for the detail, signposting should be made to existing PIANC,

CEDA and other publications in order that the document is practical in its use and

integrates the previous knowledge.

Objective

The objective of the proposed WG is to develop robust methodological guidance

to provide a screening evaluation ‘tool' for navigation and port infrastructure

projects. To aid the user the document should identify and briefly describe the

events and functional chains (pathways) of environmental change, from the

possible external driving forces, and the likely environmental receptors that

might be affected by the various potential technical components of any

navigation and infrastructure project.

For each relevant pathway of change the screening evaluation method should

use basic, simple generic terms on a broad holistic basis and as far as possible

should be integrated with existing frameworks, such as those recently developed

by the New! Delta project and the Waste Assessment Guidance of the London

Convention.

The goal is to classify, in a transparent way, the events likely to cause change

from a specific project into risk categories, such as (to be

reviewed/confirmed/expanded or otherwise by the WG):

�� None: A de minimis identifiable environmental harm will arise from

constructional interference of the envisaged project;

�� Minor. E.g. not likely to cause unacceptable harm (for example if there is

no pathway from the event causing change to a sensitive area);

�� Moderate. E.g. limited unacceptable harm (for example a sensitive area

or species has been identified, a pathway exists but the sediment has only

low levels of contamination or the port project is not in direct contact with

the sensitive area). Under this heading mitigation by various

management (dredging or otherwise) techniques may be possible.

Examples should be indicated for certain events (to illustrate the idea)

with signposting to other existing PIANC (e.g. Envicom WG 100), CEDA

documents etc;

�� Severe. E.g. likely to cause extensive unacceptable harm; for example

when a sensitive area or species has been identified and the project

component completely removes a habitat, such as intertidal reclamation,

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or where habitats or species are likely to be affected in their ecological

function. In certain situations there may be insufficient evidence on the

likely effects to enable a screening opinion to be made. In such cases it

may be necessary to move on to a full risk assessment as described in

WG10 Report to determine how significant this harm will be to the

ecosystem as a whole.

This analysis structure therefore acts as decision support information/tool for a

screening opinion, allowing minor effects to be eliminated from further

assessment and concentration on more significant impacts in a tiered approach.

A methodology is also required to summarize the assessment of the specific

pathways to allow a technical screening evaluation of the project as a whole.

In this classification process the WG should provide a method of assessing the

likely effects of the project components in the context of natural change in time

(short to long term) and space, (e.g. floods, storms), other accepted

anthropogenic activity (e.g. fishing) and the ability of the identified habitats or

species to recover from damage, i.e. temporary as opposed to permanent

effects. Members of the WG should investigate what research is taking place on

these issues and where possible summarise relevant conclusions as examples

and provide signposting to further information.

The classification of potential effects should identify the most significant areas of

concern, as well as the reason and the expected area of influence. It will identify

areas where modified project design, mitigation measures or further assessment

will be required, but most importantly define events that will not have a

significant environmental impact.

Report

The report may comprise:

�� Introduction on the requirement of the report and how it fits into the

existing knowledge base achieved from recent previous reports from

PIANC, CEDA and others and conforms to the ‘Working with Nature'

philosophy;

�� Description of the need for a consistent approach to Screening Evaluation

in navigation and port infrastructure projects;

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�� Descriptions of aspects of navigation and port infrastructure projects that

give rise to environmental impact: E.g. drag head disturbance, overflow,

spillage into the water or on land during the dredging operations, noise

and vibration from piling operations, bank redesign, building of groins,

relocation of river channel, bed lowering, shaping of floodplain etc. It

would be useful to categorise these into the different types of operations.

�� Description of types of ecosystem receptors for different initiating events:

E.g. habitat type, morphology, fauna, flora etc (it will not be possible or

helpful to name all species etc but those known to be particularly

susceptible or endangered might be listed);

�� Description of environmental functional chains (pathways): waterborne,

(semi) terrestrial, atmospheric, anthropogenic. This should include

examples of how they may be assessed. Important is the need for

specific system understanding, which may be the only information

available in countries in transition as a precursor to using various models,

including hydrodynamic, plume, sediment release rate, noise and

ecological models at the next level of assessment;

�� Broad description of existing methodologies to forecast and evaluate

environmental impacts in the context of screening evaluation of navigation

and infrastructure projects. This may comprise several approaches

starting from "simple" verbal-argumentative projections up to modelling

techniques;

�� Overview of management methods to mitigate impacts;

�� Description of the screening evaluation process developed; if possible the

method must assess the real affects from a project and not just the

perceived effect. The assessment approach must be able to take account

of the magnitude, frequency and duration of the initiating event along the

spatial pathways and place this into perspective with the natural variability

of the physical, chemical and biological aspects of the ecosystem as a

whole. In this respect the greater the system understanding as well as

lines and weights of evidence available, the lower the uncertainty in the

evaluation will be;

�� Description of best-practice examples (e.g. country wise).

Audience

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The audience would be project designers, environmental staff, civil engineers,

dredging practitioners and those responsible for drawing up environmental

assessments, the regulators who have the decision-making responsibility and

contractors who will have to carry out the projects to any rules developed

through the evaluation process.

Members

Members of the WG should include each of the above, i.e. consultants,

regulators and contractors, Port Authorities and EIA practitioners. The range of

expertise should cover at least practical port design and construction knowledge

and experience, geomorphology, physical processes, biology, ecology and

hydraulic as well as hydro-ecological modeling. It would be beneficial to include

a regulator to ensure that the approach of the group addresses the requirements

of the decision makers.