Environmental Assessment

Environmental assessment is a procedure that ensures that the environmental implications of decisions are taken into account before the decisions are made.

The process involves an analysis of the likely effects on the environment, recording those effects in a report, undertaking a public consultation exercise on the report, taking into account the comments and the report when making the final decision and informing the public about that decision afterwards.

In principle, environmental assessment can be undertaken for individual projects such as a dam, motorway, airport or factory ('Environmental Impact Assessment') or for plans, programmes and policies ('Strategic Environmental Assessment'). This website provides information on the European Community's laws on Environmental Impact Assessment of projects and the Environmental Assessment of certain plans and programmes together with other related information.

Report from the Commission on the application and effectiveness of the EIA Directive (Directive 85/337/EEC, as amended by Directives 97/11/EC and 2003/35/EC), COM/2009/0378 Report from the Commission on the application and effectiveness of the Directive on Strategic Environmental Assessment (Directive 2001/42/EC), COM/2009/469.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)	Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)
Introduction	Introduction
Legal Context	Legal Context
Guidance and research	Guidance and research
Useful Links	Useful Links
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