Research On The Effectiveness Of Public Participation In Environment Impact Assessment Based On The Effective Management Model

Human activities greatly affect the survival of our global environment with the rapid development of social economy, increasing population and booming scientific technology. The social economy and living standards of people have been developed and improved, however, at the same time our environment has been damaged seriously. With the worsening environmental crisis, the tide of global environmental protection gradually upsurges. The national experience has shown that: public participation can greatly promote the development of environmental impact assessment, as one of the environmental impact assessment criteria, it has been recognized widely. As a developing country, the citizens' environmental concerns are enhanced gradually and the idea of democracy management of public participation keeps pace with the times.Environmental impact assessment (EIA) system is an item of fundamental environment protection law and an important part of environmental management system in China. The system is one of the methods and institutions to analysis, forecast and assess the possible environmental impacts caused by the implementation of planning and construction projects, to put forward countermeasures of preventing or mitigating bad environmental impacts and to track and monitor the impacts. As the means to coordinate economic development and environment protection, EIA has increasingly become an important work of environmental management in the country. As the respect of public environmental rights, carrying out public participation in the EIA is to inform the public related situations of planning and construction projects punctually, and to take their advice and requirements into the decision and implementation.Public participation in EIA mainly refers to the unit of environment planning or construction projects, environmental management and other project-related organizations, such as local governments, experts, professionals and technical, other affected residents and so on, through some ways (such as seminars, public hearings) to participate in the construction projects, government decision-making and legislative EIA process. Public participation in EIA which is implemented widely in the world can make the public understand the construction projects and significant potential of environmental issues they may lead to. As a result, EIA of the project on construction could be more reasonable and public acceptability could be also enhanced, which is of great importance to maximize the comprehensive and long-term benefit of the projects.Public participation in EIA is an essential element of the process and it is a valuable additional tool to improve the effectiveness and avoid making mistakes.As an important part of environmental protection idea,public participation was formed in the 20th century 70s. Public participation which is a two-way exchange between the agency of the project or the environmental working-group and the public includes two parts: raising public awareness of the processes and mechanisms about investigating and solving environmental problems of environmental protection agencies,thus making the public have a full understanding to the proposal process, regional development and public policy. Meanwhile, the environmental protection agency should positively listen to the comments, suggestions and requests on resources utilization and development, as well as environmental management strategies and various decisions from the relevant public.The public participation work in EIA of our country was started relatively late compared with developed countries, although some progress has been made up to now, there are still many problems such as weak awareness of public participation, poor level of environmental information publicity on construction projects, time lags of public participation, unreasonable designs of questionnaires, unscientific statistical results and ineffective feedback as well as supervision of public participation and so on. These problems have seriously affected the effectiveness of public participation in EIA of China, resulting in the impact on the holistic effectiveness of EIA, which goes against the long-term improvements of environmental protection policies and systems of the nation. In China's continuous development process of public participation in EIA, experience abroad should be combined to explore a method of public participation which is suitable of national conditions and favorable to the development of EIA in our country.Enhancing effectiveness of public participation in EIA was set as the fundamental starting point in this paper. Firstly, overview of the correlative theory of public participation in EIA and introduced the development of several western countries (such as Japan, Russia) and the public participation in environmental impact assessment agreements of international organizations convention on EIA, and then compared aspects of the content, requirements, the public participation mechanisms, public awareness, participation levels and characteristics in legislation between China and abroad. We also summarized the problems of public participation and discussed the influencing factors for effectiveness of public participation in EIA according to the synthesis for the development history and the researches of status, methods and the type of public participation in EIA, then suggestions to improving the effectiveness of public participation in EIA were introduced and the necessity of the quantitative research of public participation in EIA was also pointed out.Firstly, three hypotheses were introduced according to the status of public participation in EIA: hypotheses 1: all of the public policy of EIA need public participation; hypotheses 2: none of the public policy of EIA need public participation; hypotheses 3: the effectiveness of public participation in EIA was ensured by the appropriate choice of management decision-making. And the technical line of this study was determined as " analyzing the problems of public participation in EIA by literature review and the EIA report - defining topics - raising research hypotheses– determining the method of research - hypothesis testing - policy recommendations makeing "Secondly, three hypotheses proposed were tested and obtained that the construction that public participation only need to work in part of the formulation and implementation for decision-making in EIA. At the same time, we also need to design-related involvement of diverse ways and determine appropriate public intervention time to ensure the effectiveness of public participation in EIA.Thirdly, the improved effective public participation in Thomas decision-making model was applied in public participation in EIA of construction projects based on the hypothesis test. The scope and extent of public participation depends on the balance of the two dimensions, which are the quality of policies and public acceptability. Thomas effective decision-making model can help project managers to distinguish between the needs of different levels of public participation, and according to the nature of public decision-making, choose a different gradient of decision-making public participation in EIA. In this paper, environmental impact assessment of construction projects in China was divided into four kinds of decision modes: the modified-independent managerial decision-making, the decentralized-public consensus decision-making, the integral-public negotiatory decision-making and the public decision-making. Every kind of decision corresponds to demand degree of public participation with different level. Thereby, different grades of public participation were chosen in EIA of the construction project decision. But only blur extent of public participation can be determined, the main body of public participation in EIA is not clear, and validity of public participation is difficult to guarantee. Hence, project managers need to ensure the main body of public participation according to various decision models besides to choose appropriate management decision. Diversified participation approaches should be designed and feasible intervention time of public should be confirmed.The paper built the efficiency management model of public participation in EIA after confirming the four kinds of decision modes. The components of the efficiency management model, which include main body, domain, approach, and impression of public participation, were studied quantificationally by means of expert interview, consulting results of the questionnaire and statistical analysis. The following conclusions may be drawn:(1) Under the mode of modified-independent managerial decision, a system of public participation can be the persons who were directly affected by construction project, and it also can be the participated public for all levels in environmental impact assessment (environmental protection agency, industry department, construction company, and social groups or individual and other interested groups or individual, which were other than the EIA agency); under the mode of decentralized-public consensus decision, the main part of the public participation should be the participated public for all levels in environmental impact assessment; under the mode of integral-public negotiatory decision, the main part of the public participation should be the citizen, legal persons, or the member of other organization who were affected by construction project; under the mode of public decision, the main part of the public participation should be the participated public for all levels in environmental impact assessment.(2) In order to ensure effective public participation in the view of the public, it should introduce the public to participate in environmental impact assessment at least Abstract three times as follows: the study stage of correlative files of the state and documents related to the project development, the environment evaluation findings stage of given the feasibility of building a project and the stage of comments about environmental protection measures and proposal. At the same time, the public desire to take initiative to understand the situation and put forward opinions and suggestions more actively, rather than passively accept the information provided by the government and the project organizer in EIA process.(3) Quantitative research about ways of public participation was investigated through the investigation of present forms for effective participation, which can provide basis for project managers to make decision in construction project.Meanwhile, according to the extent, the paper further measured off public acceptability of decision-making quality areas, and then established evaluation and calculation methods of public participation and index of comprehensive support. The organic combination of evaluation and calculation methods let the factors (consisting of the decision quality, the main public participation, the field of public participation, the public participation way and the effect of public participation) of the public participation model in the effective management unify into a closed system, which timely adjusted and effectively managed the variables factors in the model through the quality the extent of the realization of public participation in decision-making effectiveness evaluation to determine and made the effective management of public participation from the static one-way model of decision-making model to a dynamic multi-dimensional management model, which provided some decision support for public participation in EIA process of the project managers in China.The thesis has a breakthrough compared with the previous research of public participation in EIA based on the combination of qualitative and quantitative, also can provide a certain management decision support to help managers do better improvement of the effectiveness of public participation in EIA, and also make public participation plays a better role in EIA in the future.