Environmental impact assessment: Retrospect and prospect

The widespread experience of environmental impact assessment (ETA) as an anticipatory environmental management tool has generated a considerable debate over the extent to which it is achieving its purposes. This has been measured in terms of ETA 'effectiveness', especially as discussion has moved away from issues of procedural implementation, to the more substantive goals of ETA and its place within broader decision-making contexts. Empirical studies have revealed the relatively weak degree of influence on planning decisions that is being exerted by ETA, which is increasingly being attributed to its rationalist beginnings. This article seeks to direct this debate towards the founding political purposes of ETA which, it is argued, provide a neglected, yet strong, basis for ETA reform. A number of illustrative suggestions are made as a result of this redirection, to enable ETA to adopt a more determinative role in decision making and to contribute to more sustainable patterns of development planning. (C) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.