Environmental Impact Assessment Of Planning In Kunming:Obstacles And Remedies

Environmental Impact Assessment of Planning (EIAP) is used for analyzing, predicting and evaluating any possible environmental impact after planning, and suggesting solutions and remedies for negative impacts with follow-up evaluation. Compared with Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of construction, EIAP focuses more on scientific and rational coordination of regional environmental elements such as atmospheric environment, water resources, development positioning, spatial arrangement, ecological function zoning, etc. It’s also a more prospective and holistic way of dealing with environmental pollution and ecological destruction from root causes.Since the issue of Environmental Impact Evaluation Law of the People’s Republic of China in2003, EIAP has been legally established. The implementation of it, however, is unsatisfactory. The situation in Kunming is the same. Although Kunming has made efforts on EIAP since2003, it’s more like the traditional ElA of construction, with flaws on environmental soundness, the alternatives and follow-ups plans. Not enough attentions are given from government, with obstacles such as unclear responsibilities between functioning departments, unsound coordinating mechanism, lack of legal support, and weak evaluating team and methods. But root causes are lack of environmental elements during government policy making, causing policy defects and decision mistakes.Based on national regulation and foreign experience, this article studies the implementation of EIAP in Kunming and reveals and analyzes main obstacles. It also suggests remedies such as expanding EIAP, having alternative plans, coordination among government departments, reinforce personnel capacity building. The article also offers suggestions on how to control root causes of environment problems with early intervention of EIAP to prevent government policy defects and realize sustainable development.