IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jenpmg/v59y2016i3p393-413.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environmental impact assessment of infrastructure projects: a governance perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Cheryl S.F. Chi
  • Inkeri Ruuska
  • Jianhua Xu

Abstract

Environmental impact assessment (EIA) has been promoted as an instrument for preventive environmental management in construction projects, but its performance in safeguarding the environment through influencing project decision-making is questioned. This paper probes the underlying reasons from a governance perspective as an important supplement to the regulatory and technical perspectives. A framework, with process integration, professional governance, and public engagement being its key components, is proposed to analyze the governance arrangements that enable or inhibit the effective functioning of EIA, based on which a comparative study of three infrastructure projects in China, the United States and Finland was conducted. The results reveal that, while the level of process integration and public engagement of EIA determines the degree to which EIA influences project decisions, it is the professional governance that controls the accountability of EIA. The paper has implications on institutionally where efforts should be directed to improve the performance of EIA.

Suggested Citation

  • Cheryl S.F. Chi & Inkeri Ruuska & Jianhua Xu, 2016. "Environmental impact assessment of infrastructure projects: a governance perspective," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(3), pages 393-413, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jenpmg:v:59:y:2016:i:3:p:393-413
    DOI: 10.1080/09640568.2015.1013623
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09640568.2015.1013623
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09640568.2015.1013623?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wei Yin, 2019. "Integrating Sustainable Development Goals into the Belt and Road Initiative: Would It Be a New Model for Green and Sustainable Investment?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-22, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jenpmg:v:59:y:2016:i:3:p:393-413. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CJEP20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.