Assessing and managing the potential for compliance default of applications submitted in terms of South Africa's environmental impact assessment regulations

In the environmental impact assessment (EIA) field, much attention is paid to theprocess leading up to the granting of an environmental authorization, but very little isgiven to what happens after the consent decision is granted. This study aimed toaddress this lack through the implementation of an EIA follow-up procedure in a regionof the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Follow-up focused on assessing the amountof non-compliance with EIA consent conditions as well as the overall impact that projectshad had on the environment. The results of this follow-up process were then used todevelop a risk screening tool that could be used to screen out new EIA applications thatwere likely to require follow-up to control default or impact.Projects that showed the greatest amount of default were those submitted by localmunicipal proponents for basic infrastructure type activities such as sewage treatmentworks and low-income housing developments. Private companies that compete in theopen market presented the lowest default risk. Default with consent conditions rangedbetween 0% and 100% with an average rate of default of 49%.The overall environmental impact for the majority (58%) of projects followed-up on waslow (on a 5 point scale of low to high), with only 1% of projects scoring high on impact.The study found a moderate positive correlation between default and impact (rs = 0.48)although a significant percentage (39%) of projects scored high on default but low onimpact. Follow-up appears to have had a positive effect on reducing the averageamounts of default and to a lesser extent the degree of impact.The risk screening tool developed is promising with statistically significant matchesbetween predicted and actual default and impact scores for three out of the four testsamples.