earticle

영어

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in Korea has been used to improve environmental conservation and decision-making since Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) were introduced in 1981 with the promulgation of the Environment Preservation Act in 1977. Since then, EIA systems and methods have been developed to help meet the sustainable development goals and stakeholders' needs. As the Act has been developed through many stages of reformation, various assessment systems can be overlapped with each other when covering one development project. The demand for the simplification of the process is therefore increasing. This problem can be tackled for the more effective implementation of the EIA process by the introduction of screening, scoping, cumulative assessment method, integrated assessment methods, geographic information systems, health risk assessments, and rapid assessment, to name a few. A cyber EIA using the internet and may servers are also under discussion. Moreover, the capacity for effective EIA can be built by professional education of EIA assessor in a form of job training. The teaching methodology of the education should be planned that is suitable for Korean circumstances for EIA. In addition to that, the reform of the infrastructure (such as the EIA regulation) should be followed up for the better EIA performance. Even so, EIA is still not fully satisfactory and is sometimes considered as an inefficient and superficial tool. However, an effective EIA can be carried out as the capacity builds not only at the project level but also at the policy-making level. For this, an EIA professional certification for EIA professional assessor will soon be implemented. The certification system can adopt lessons learned from IS0 14000. At the first stage of the certificate test, it is in discussion to require knowledge on various subjects, for example, (introductory level of environmental science, environmental ecology, environmental health, EIA process and its related law, and environmental planning (including land use plan). All these subjects are currently dealt in university-level curriculum. At the second stage of the certificate test, the test is recommended to include current Korean environmental impact assessment policies with reference to the "Environmental Impact Assessment Training Resource Manual" published by UNEP in 1996 and "Student Text for Principles of Environmental Impact Assessment Review" by U.S. EPA in 1998, in order to evaluate the practice capacities of the candidates. The level of the certification of EIA assessment can be divided into project manager and assistant, depending on their experience and expertise. In conclusion, EIA professional certification system is aimed to enhance the sustainablility, integrity and utility of EIA, which are of importance in the realization of EIA process.