DEAMB - Departamento de Engenharia Ambiental
URI permanente desta comunidadehttp://www.hml.repositorio.ufop.br/handle/123456789/480
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Resultados da Pesquisa
Item Why are projects rarely rejected in environmental impact assessments? : narratives of justifiability in Brazilian and Canadian review reports.(2021) Fonseca, Alberto de Freitas Castro; Gibson, Robert B.Projects that undergo environmental impact assessment (EIA) are rarely rejected. Online registries and anecdotal evidence suggest that authorities approve almost all proposed and assessed projects, though often with mitigation requirements. The objective of this study was: 1) to identify the rules or criteria that reviewers and authorities must observe when considering the acceptance or rejection of projects; and 2) to understand how rare cases of rejection decisions are justified by reviewers. Data were collected through literature and regulatory reviews, and content analysis of review reports related to five Canadian and seven Brazilian rejected projects. Reviewers from Canada and Brazil adopted similar approaches to decision-making based on qualitative reasoning. Rejection recommendations were based on reasons, such as significance of biophysical impacts, sensitivity of locations and community values. The influence of reviewers’ recommendations on final decisions remains unknown. The study highlights practical implications and calls for greater transparency and rigor in EIA decision-making.Item Pathways for recent Cerrado soybean expansion : extending the soy moratorium and implementing integrated crop livestock systems with soybeans.(2019) Nepstad, Lucy S.; Gerber, James S.; Hill, Jason D.; Dias, Lívia Cristina Pinto; Costa, Marcos Heil; West, Paul C.The Brazilian Soy Moratorium has effectively reduced forest conversion for soybeans in Amazonia. This has come at the expense of the region’s pasturelands, which have increasingly ceded space for compliant soy expansion. The question of extending the policy to the Cerrado, where recent soy expansion has come at the cost of ecologically valuable vegetation, plugs into a wider discussion on how to reconcile competing commodities on finite amounts of cleared area. Innovative management strategies that allow different land uses to coexist are urgently needed. Integrated crop-livestock systems with soybeans(ICLS)rotates beef and soy on the same area, and shows promise as a means to improve production, farmer benefit, and environmental impacts. Here we reconstruct historical land use maps to estimate Cerrado Soy Moratorium outcomes with benchmark years in 2008 and 2014, we then estimate additional production afforded by ICLS implementation between 2008 and 2014. We find that if a 2008 Cerrado Soy Moratorium were in place, 0.7 Mha of 2014 Cerrado soy area would currently be in violation of the policy. Roughly 96% of this acreage is found in Matopiba (82%) and Mato Grosso (14%)states, suggesting that adoption may have slowed recent production in these rapidly transforming soy centers, in contrast to central and southwestern Cerrado where there is more concentrated eligible expansion area. Changing the benchmark to 2014 could have added 0.7 Mha of eligible expansion area, though over 80% of these additions would be in states with the most 2008 eligible area (Distrito Federal, Mato Grosso, Maranhão, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul). Meanwhile, ICLS adoption could have added between 4.0 and 32 Mha of new soy land to the study area without additional clearing between 2008 and 2014, though this would depend on rigorous accompanying land zoning policy to guide implementation. The roughly 5 Mha of Cerrado soybean expansion that actually occurred between 2008 and 2014 could have been accommodated on 2008 suitable pasture area given an ICLS rotation frequency of every 6 years or less. Conservation estimates presented here represent the upper limit of what is possible, as our scenario modeling does not account for variables such as leakage, laundering, or rebound effects.Item Methodological pluralism in environmental impact prediction and significance evaluation : a case for standardization?(2020) Fonseca, Alberto de Freitas Castro; Brito, Ludmila Ladeira Alves de; Gibson, Robert B.At the core of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process is the identification, prediction and evaluation of impacts, activities that are profoundly marked by case-specific differences and methodological pluralism. Despite difficulties, policy-makers are occasionally attracted to the idea of standardizing EIA methods. The objective of this study was to understand the merits of standardizing methods for impact prediction and significance evaluations, using Brazil as the empirical context. Based on a content analysis of 49 EIA reports, a survey with 126 practitioners, and a critical evaluation of two standardization initiatives, the study shows that, while generally perceived as beneficial, the standardization of EIA methods is likely to remain a rather challenging task in the foreseeable future. The high degrees of discretion taking place in the selection and implementation of impact prediction and significance evaluations are to a large extent a consequence of the difficulty of finding terminology, metrics, criteria, thresholds, boundaries, and values across different settings. Current standardization initiatives in Brazil are targeting some of the easiest methodological issues related to terminology and process. While relevant to administrative efficiency and process predictability, such issues represent a small piece of the complex puzzle of EIA effectiveness. Findings signal the need for clearer policy priorities, capacity building, and more applied research about the actual, long-term effects of standardization initiatives.Item Reviewers’ perceptions of the volume of information provided in environmental impact statements : the case for refocusing attention on what is relevant.(2020) Fonseca, Alberto de Freitas Castro; Rivera Fernández, Germán MarinoEnvironmental impact statements (EISs), the main source of information used by reviewers and decisionmakers in the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process, are becoming increasingly lengthy. The implications of this phenomenon for decision-making have been mostly anecdotal. The objective of this article is twofold: first, it seeks to identify the main consequences of the growing volume of information provided in EISs for reviewing and decision-making; second, it aims at establishing how to better address the challenges of reviewing lengthy EISs. The perceptions of EIS reviewers were surveyed through an online questionnaire in Brazil. The 115 responses reveal that the growing volume of information provided in EISs has both positive and negative consequences. The majority of respondents perceived information needs to be context-dependent. Findings indicate that the challenges of reviewing lengthy EISs stem not so much from too much information, but rather from irrelevant information, as well as from weak capacity to process information. Therefore, enhancing the assessment scope and strengthening capacitybuilding are key steps in improving decision-making. The survey also revealed specific problems in Brazil’s environmental agencies, such as lack of staff and agencies’ growing dependence on information systems and repositories. The article highlights practical implications and suggests future avenues of research.Item The use of administrative sanctions to prevent environmental damage in impact assessment follow-ups.(2018) Garcia, Luiz Carlos; Fonseca, Alberto de Freitas CastroScholars have long been highlighting the value of administrative sanctions in improving environmental policy enforcement. However, few studies have evaluated how such sanctions are implemented, particularly in the context of environmental impact assessments (EIA) and their respective follow-up programs. The main objective of this article was to evaluate how administrative sanctions have been used in EIA follow-ups, using the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais as the empirical context. More specifically it tried to understand what have been the main triggers, frequency, nature and financial values of the sanctions issued to noncompliant mining projects operating under the conditions of environmental licenses. First, through literature reviews, the study characterized the institutional and regulatory framework in which administrative sanctions are applied. Content analyzes of 29 infraction processes further revealed that lump sum fines are the preferred option of administrative sanction in EIA followups. The analysis also revealed that the fines could be perceived as disproportionally small if one considers the size and financial power of non-compliant companies. The great majority of the fines were paid by developers: a fact that contradicts previous empirical findings and anecdotal evidence in Brazil. Overall, the study suggests that the impact of administrative sanctions in corporate behavior, while unclear, is likely small. The study concludes by discussing practical and academic implications.Item Biodiversity monitoring in the environmental impact assessment ofmining projects : a (persistent) waste of time and money?(2017) Dias, Amanda Monique da Silva; Fonseca, Alberto de Freitas Castro; Paglia, Adriano PereiraEnvironmental impact assessments, not only in Brazil, but also globally, have long had their effectivenessquestioned. Among the most frequently debated problems are: low quality of the impact assessmentstatements, weak public participation, project delays, increased costs for proponents, amongst others.The ineffectiveness of the environmental impact assessment system is corroborated by recent schol-arly articles that argue that poor follow-up is one of the key elements behind the worst environmentaldisaster in Brazil, the Fundão Dam failure. The quality of monitoring programs has long been criticizedin Brazil for being partially implemented and for failing to clearly translate into better environmentaldecision-making. This paper discusses the state of environmental impact assessment related to biodi-versity monitoring programs in Brazil’s mining regions, highlighting the political interference aroundthis practice. Biodiversity monitoring programs should set a collection protocol, using a robust samp-ling design, with sufficient survey effort, spatial replication, methodological consistency and time todetect eventual ecological alterations. Without scientific rigor, collected data may have no value fordecision-making, representing a complete waste of time and money.