Public Participation In The China Environmental Impact Assessment System Improvement Study

Public participation is the important element in environmental impact assessment (EIA), concretely speaking, it must solicit public comments to the proposed action when we do the environmental impact assessment, write the environmental impact process-verbal, examine and approve it. The public opinion must be the basis for decision-making, in order to avoid the proposed action may cause damage to the public environmental rights and interests, protect the interests of relevant stakeholders. Public participation in environmental impact evaluation is the expression of democratic decision-making.With the promulgation of "Environmental Impact Evaluation Law" in China in 2002 and the in-depth development of environmental impact evaluation, the construction of public participation system in the environmental impact assessment has also been paid more and more attention, The former State Environmental Protection Administration promulgated "Interim Measures on Public Participation in Environmental Impact Evaluation" in 2006, to further normalize the process and approaches of the public participation in the environmental impact evaluation.The western developed countries in this regard started early and have rich practical experience, the research is more mature. In this paper, by the introduction of the public participation system in the environmental impact evaluation in the USA, Japan and World Bank, we find that the public participated in the environmental impact evaluation earlier, the range is abroad; they have the consummate information publicity system, the program of the public participation information feedback disposing, and the corresponding justice indemnification mechanism, these have the use for reference for the consummation of the public participation system in the environmental impact evaluation in our country. Then through the demonstration analysis of the public participation in the construction project environmental impact evaluation and in the planning environmental impact evaluation in our country, we can find the questions of the public participation system in the environmental impact evaluation in our country:the information of the public participation ache in the environmental impact evaluation is not enough open, the construction of the public participation processing system in the environmental impact evaluation, the function of community and NGO in the public participation, the indemnification of the right of the public participation, the aforementioned aspects must be consummated. In the basis of absorbing and using the experience of the western developed countries for reference, we can propose rationalization proposals for the further improvement of the public participation system in environmental impact evaluation in China, so as to promote the development of the public participation system in environmental impact evaluation in China.This paper is divided into four parts, the first is the overview of the public participation system in environmental impact evaluation; the second part is the studies of the development of the public participation system in the environmental impact evaluation in foreign countries; the third part is the demonstration analysis of the development problems of the public participation system in environmental impact evaluation in China; the fourth part is proposing the rationalization proposals of improving the public participation system in environmental impact evaluation.