Bigard Charlotte, Pioch Sylvain, Thompson John D
UMR 5175 Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, CNRS, 1919 route de Mende, 34293, Montpellier Cedex 5, France; Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole, 50, place Zeus, CS 39556, 34961, Montpellier Cedex 2, France.
UMR 5175, Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, Université de Montpellier - Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier, Route de Mende, 34199, Montpellier Cedex 5, France.
J Environ Manage. 2017 Sep 15;200:35-45. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.05.057. Epub 2017 May 26.
Natural habitat loss and fragmentation, as a result of development projects, are major causes of biodiversity erosion. Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is the most commonly used site-specific planning tool that takes into account the effects of development projects on biodiversity by integrating potential impacts into the mitigation hierarchy of avoidance, reduction, and offset measures. However, the extent to which EIA fully address the identification of impacts and conservation stakes associated with biodiversity loss has been criticized in recent work. In this paper we examine the extent to which biodiversity criteria have been integrated into 42 EIA from 2006 to 2016 for small development projects in the Montpellier Metropolitan territory in southern France. This study system allowed us to question how EIA integrates biodiversity impacts on a scale relevant to land-use planning. We examine how biodiversity inclusion has changed over time in relation to new policy for EIA and how the mitigation hierarchy is implemented in practice and in comparison with national guidelines. We demonstrate that the inclusion of biodiversity features into EIA has increased significantly in relation to policy change. Several weaknesses nevertheless persist, including the continued absence of substitution solution assessment, a correct analysis of cumulative impacts, the evaluation of impacts on common species, the inclusion of an ecological network scale, and the lack of monitoring and evaluation measures. We also show that measures for mitigation hierarchy are primarily associated with the reduction of impacts rather than their avoidance, and avoidance and offset measures are often misleadingly proposed in EIA. There is in fact marked semantic confusion between avoidance, reduction and offset measures that may impair stakeholders' understanding. All in all, reconsideration of stakeholders routine practices associated with a more strategic approach towards impact anticipation and avoidance at a land-use planning scale is now necessary for the mitigation hierarchy to become a clear and practical hierarchy for "no net loss" objectives based on conservation priorities.
由于开发项目导致的自然栖息地丧失和破碎化，是生物多样性受到侵蚀的主要原因。环境影响评估（EIA）是最常用的特定地点规划工具，它通过将潜在影响纳入避免、减少和补偿措施的缓解层级体系，来考虑开发项目对生物多样性的影响。然而，近期的研究批评了环境影响评估在多大程度上充分解决了与生物多样性丧失相关的影响识别和保护问题。在本文中，我们研究了2006年至2016年期间，法国南部蒙彼利埃大都市地区小型开发项目的42份环境影响评估中，生物多样性标准的纳入程度。这个研究体系使我们能够探讨环境影响评估如何在与土地利用规划相关的尺度上整合生物多样性影响。我们研究了生物多样性纳入情况如何随着环境影响评估新政策的出台而随时间变化，以及缓解层级体系在实践中是如何实施的，并与国家指南进行比较。我们证明，与政策变化相关，生物多样性特征纳入环境影响评估的情况显著增加。然而，仍存在一些弱点，包括持续缺乏替代解决方案评估、对累积影响的正确分析、对常见物种影响的评估、生态网络尺度的纳入，以及缺乏监测和评估措施。我们还表明，缓解层级体系的措施主要与影响的减少而非避免相关，并且在环境影响评估中，避免和补偿措施的提议往往具有误导性。实际上，避免、减少和补偿措施之间存在明显的语义混淆，这可能会损害利益相关者的理解。总而言之，现在有必要重新考虑利益相关者的常规做法，采取更具战略性的方法来在土地利用规划尺度上预测和避免影响，以便缓解层级体系能够成为基于保护优先事项实现“无净损失”目标的清晰且实用的层级体系。
