The Implementation of Environmental Impact Assessment in the Water Sector of the Amhara National Regional State

Abstract

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a systematic process of examination of project (like water) development activities with a view to ensuring environmental friendly and sustainable development. This study tries to analyzing the effective system of EIA which has been recognized in regional; national and international environmental legal instruments and its practical implementation of EIA in the water sector of ANRS. Hence this research mainly focuses on implementation of EIA in the water sectors with four evaluation criteria’s namely the legal basis, institutional architecture, capacity and coordination frame work, and public participation and consultancy services. The fulfillments of these requirements are very crucial tools to conduct the effective implementation of EIA system so as to attain the environmental developmental activities. The main objective of this study is to assess the challenges of institutional frame work, public participation and consultancy services for the effective implementation of EIA system and the related legal lacuna from the context of water development activities at the ANRS. In this study a qualitative method was applied for interpreting, identifying and gathering quality data through purposive and quota sampling system. Hence, the data was collected from fifteen experts; from different environmental and related felids stakeholders as well as laws, policy, journals, books etc by using primary and secondary data sources for respectively. The obtained qualitative data were interpreted by using comparative and triangulation approaches in a way that reflects out the challenges and constraints for the effective implementation of EIA system in the water sectors projects at the ANRS. The study concludes that the implementation of EIA is insufficient due to weak legal framework, poor vertical and horizontal integration, coordination and cooperation among environmental institutional organs. And also weak preparation of EIAS document, poor review activities of the EIAS document, absence of monitoring and auditing of EIA process are the fundamental challenges of the system of EIA process. Besides, lack of regulation and directives, weak human, material and financial resources capacity, poor enforcement capacity, less public participation and consultancy services are the other vital barriers of the effective implementation of EIA system in the water sector of the ANRS. Thus, the concerned organs should avoid the above challenges and constraints to improve the effective implementation of EIA process in the water sector of the Amhara National Regional State.