Escola Politécnica, University of São Paulo, Av. Prof. Mello Moraes, 2373 São Paulo, SP 05508-900, Brazil.
J Environ Manage. 2011 Sep;92(9):2260-71. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2011.04.010. Epub 2011 May 17.
How does knowledge management (KM) by a government agency responsible for environmental impact assessment (EIA) potentially contribute to better environmental assessment and management practice? Staff members at government agencies in charge of the EIA process are knowledge workers who perform judgement-oriented tasks highly reliant on individual expertise, but also grounded on the agency's knowledge accumulated over the years. Part of an agency's knowledge can be codified and stored in an organizational memory, but is subject to decay or loss if not properly managed. The EIA agency operating in Western Australia was used as a case study. Its KM initiatives were reviewed, knowledge repositories were identified and staff surveyed to gauge the utilisation and effectiveness of such repositories in enabling them to perform EIA tasks. Key elements of KM are the preparation of substantive guidance and spatial information management. It was found that treatment of cumulative impacts on the environment is very limited and information derived from project follow-up is not properly captured and stored, thus not used to create new knowledge and to improve practice and effectiveness. Other opportunities for improving organizational learning include the use of after-action reviews. The learning about knowledge management in EIA practice gained from Western Australian experience should be of value to agencies worldwide seeking to understand where best to direct their resources for their own knowledge repositories and environmental management practice.
政府机构的知识管理（KM）如何有可能促进更好的环境评估和管理实践？负责环境影响评估（EIA）过程的政府机构的工作人员是知识型员工，他们执行高度依赖个人专业知识的判断性任务，但也基于机构多年来积累的知识。机构的一部分知识可以被编纂并存储在组织记忆中，但如果管理不善，就会衰减或丢失。西澳大利亚的 EIA 机构被用作案例研究。审查了其 KM 计划，确定了知识库，并对员工进行了调查，以评估此类知识库在帮助他们执行 EIA 任务方面的利用和有效性。KM 的关键要素是编写实质性指南和空间信息管理。结果发现，对环境累积影响的处理非常有限，而且没有妥善获取和存储从项目后续行动中获得的信息，因此无法利用这些信息来创造新知识，改进实践和提高效率。提高组织学习的其他机会包括使用事后审查。从西澳大利亚经验中获得的 EIA 实践中的知识管理学习，对于全球范围内寻求了解如何为自己的知识库和环境管理实践分配资源的机构来说，应该具有价值。
