MCDA methods supporting transparency and public involvement in EIA

Abstract

The growing expectations of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for quality, consistency and transparency are becoming increasingly demanding. To react to this development, stakeholder participation should be considered more systematically and extensively as a part of the EIA process. A multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) approach can provide a framework for the EIA and a platform for the proponents of the project and stakeholders to discuss the problems of the project. It can be used to focus on the most relevant issues and criteria for the assessment, and find the relevant divergence of the different alternatives from various points of view. We present a case study of a wind farm in Finland where MCDA tools were widely used. Some challenges occurred, e.g. choosing the right level of stakeholder familiarisation with the methods introduced, as well as the timing of the integration of the MCDA tools into the EIA process. However, the MCDA tools provided a deeper overall view of the different objectives of the project, as well as a systematic and transparent method of progressing in the EIA process. Our experiences showed that these methods suit in the EIA field and that stakeholders can be a crucial help in assessing the impacts of the project and the significance of the numerous impacts. There are also several other advantages to have intensive stakeholder participation, e.g. communication, assessing mitigation measures and compensation, and most of all to negotiate the social license to operate in the project area.