Environmental Impact Assessment Handbook: A practical guide for planners, developers and communities, Third edition

Environmental Impact Assessment Handbook, Third edition offers a comprehensive practical guide to the requirements of environmental impact assessment (EIA) in accordance with UK regulations. Explaining the EIA process and legal procedures in a clear and straightforward way, the authors employ their extensive practical experience to cover each of the steps and associated studies needed to undertake an EIA and to produce a successful environmental statement.

Environmental Impact Assessment Handbook is fully updated in line with EU legislation for ensuring protection of the environment from new development, including the 2014 EU directive transposed into UK law in 2017, which heralds a step-change in scope and approach.

Written by practitioners for practitioners, covering procedures, environmental issues and other associated assessments, Environmental Impact Assessment Handbook

• presents the requirements of EIA in a readily accessible and practical way
• inspires good EIA practice with the use of case studies
• informs and guides the early and effective use of EIA
• demonstrates how improvements in EIA practice facilitate better-informed planning decisions
• outlines the procedures associated with strategic environmental assessment and demonstrates its benefits.

Including full cross-referencing and links to further information, Environmental Impact Assessment Handbook provides an invaluable overview and step-by-step guide for local authority planners, environmental regulators, consultants and all professionals working on development proposals. Students and community groups will also find this a valuable text.

Book Reviews

This book affirmatively presents as a handbook indeed. Written by practitioners, it examines EIA from a practical but also highly educational point of view. It adopts a step-by-step approach to explaining the EIA procedure for practitioners at varied stages of their professional experience. Graduates and students will find the text a useful companion in helping them get a full grasp of the EIA process and more experienced professionals will find the book a useful resource for their professional development especially as a result of updates in regulations and the example case studies.

David Oloke, Principal Consultant, Progressive Concept Consultancy Ltd

This practical guide is a must for anyone actively involved, or about to become involved, in environmental impact assessments. It is broken down into stages of the assessment process, enabling readers to dip in and out whenever they need advice and support. Each chapter works through the process methodically, identifying the relevant parts of the legislation, providing advice from the authors and presenting case studies.

Jo Griffiths, Network Rail, UK

This book is the third edition of the practical handbook for Environmental Impact Assessments. It does a great deal to demystify the process and explain in clear language what is needed, when and why. This is very helpful and an excellent manual. (...) This is just the book that can be trusted in clear language to tell us what is required, so that we know and can operate in an informed way.

The handbook achieves what it set out to do. It is a step by step logical process of delivering an Environmental Impact Assessment through the various stages. The most important element of the book from my perspective is the thought given to the integration of these processes in the project. The handbook clearly details what is needed at each stage in the project lifecycle. An excellent book for planners, developer and communities, as the title suggests, but I would also highly recommend for other construction industry professionals who work in projects that may require EIA, to ensure that they understand the implications, and plan sufficient resources to ensure project success.

Veronica Flint Williams, Environment Agency