UNIT 3

ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT PLAN

Every industrial development is associated with the positive and negative impacts on
environmental components. Though the probable negative impacts cannot be nullified
completely the much required developmental activities cannot be impeded. Environmental
Impact Assessment helps in identifying potential environmental impacts of a proposed
project activity. Based on the finding of the impact assessment, Environment Management
Plan is devised to minimize the adverse impacts and enumerate various steps to be taken for
improvement of the environment. Environmental Management Plan helps in formulation,
implementation and monitoring of environmental parameters during & commissioning of
project. Environment Management Plan (EMP) is the tool to ensure a safe and clean
environment. A project may have identified proper mitigation measures but without a
management plan to execute it, the desired results may not be obtained. The Environment
Management Plan envisages proper implementation of mitigation measures to reduce the
adverse impacts arising out of the project activities.

OBJECTIVES OF THE EMP

The main objective of Environmental Management Plan is to warrant that the industrial
development in an identified particular study area needs to be entangled with judicious
utilization of non-renewable resources and to ensure that the stress / load on the ecosystem is
within its permissible assimilative capacity i.e. its carrying capacity. In above context
assimilative capacity refers to the maximum amount of pollution load that can be discharged
into the environment without affecting the designated use of various environmental attributes
and is governed by dilution, dispersion and removal due to physico-chemical and biological
process. An effective EMP ensures that these environmental requirements and objectives are
satisfied during all phases of project.

The long-term objectives of the EMP for all the environmental attributes are as under:

• To comply with all the regulations / applicable laws stipulated by Central & State Pollution
Control Boards.
• To create good working conditions (devoid of air and noise pollution) for the employees
• To rationalize and streamline environmental activities to add value in efficiency and
effectiveness
• To encourage and achieve highest performance and response from individual employees
and contractors
• To plan out the complete strategy to take care of stakeholder engagement
• Perspective budgeting and allocation of funds for environment management expenditure
• To encourage support and conduct developmental works for the purpose of achieving
environment standards and to improve methods of environment management
• Continuous development and search for innovative technologies for a cleaner and better
environment
• To contribute significantly for sustainable development
• To prepare a schedule for monitoring and compliance
• To establish a watchdog committee voluntarily with an ultimate aim to get ISO 14000
certification

MONITORING ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT PLAN

Proactive and adaptive measures to protect the environment.

Rapid coastal development, combined with population growth and global industrialisation, is
placing coastal and marine environments under increasing pressure. New ports and harbours,
coastal defence and climate change adaptation measures, as well as land reclamation and
dredging works are imperative in order to support our existing and future prosperity. Most of
these projects typically go through Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) to identify and
mitigate potential environmental impacts. However, an EIA is usually based upon a range of
assumptions about the timing and methodology of the construction works. These details are
only available once the construction contract is awarded. They also keep changing throughout
the course of the development in response to changing site conditions.

An ongoing Environmental Monitoring and Management Plan (EMMP) is a tool to

proactively manage and confirm that impacts of dredging, reclamation and other marine
construction activities do not exceed the stipulated Environmental Quality Objectives (EQOs)
for the project.

THE CHALLENGES

o Meeting environmental conditions and commitments

o Protecting sensitive marine habitats in close proximity to the development
o Optimising construction methods to minimise the overall construction period
o Avoiding unnecessary delays or work stoppages due to overly conservative
monitoring triggers
o Addressing cumulative effects as well as effects of natural background variability on
monitoring triggers based on facts
o Providing transparency and confidence to
stakeholders

APPROACH

The international best practice approach to manage construction phase impacts from large
scale marine infrastructure projects is a proactive, adaptive EMMP referred to as a Feedback
EMMP. Developed by us, it’s regarded as the most effective EMMP approach for control and
mitigation of potential environmental impacts of construction in sensitive marine
environments.

SOLUTIONS
o Feedback EMMP to proactively and adaptively manage construction phase impacts
o Numerical modelling to optimise construction methods, reducing impacts and costs
o Advanced monitoring technologies to provide better data for modelling and
management
o Web-based Decision Support System (DSS) to consolidate monitoring and
compliance details and provide a simple management interface
 o Multimedia animations of model and compliance results to enhance communication
with stakeholders

Identification of Significant or Unacceptable Impacts Requiring Mitigation:

Mitigation refers to minimizing or avoiding the described impacts. Overall, mitigation

measures are a response to the findings of impact assessment; they need to cover all the areas
identified.
The key focus of mitigation actions should be on:
 Preventive measures that avoid the occurrence of impacts and thus avoid harm or
even produce positive outcomes.
 Measures that focus on limiting the severity and the duration of the impacts.
 Compensation mechanisms for those impacts that are unavoidable and cannot be
reduced further.
Key impacts and potential mitigation actions often relate to land. Almost all development
proposals involve disturbance of the land surface. This is usually extensive for major linear
projects (roads, pipelines), dams and reservoirs, and large-scale mining, agriculture, forestry
and housing schemes. Environmental impacts of particular concern can include drainage of
wetlands, conversion of natural areas, or expansion into areas that are vulnerable to natural
hazards.

Mitigation actions to address impacts:

The development of alternatives to a proposed project is part of a comprehensive approach to
mitigation. Specific mitigation actions are described in project alternatives to reduce or avoid
the identified impacts. Examples of these include changes in the technological process to
eliminate organic effluents in fish meal plants, replanting of vegetation on slopes after road
construction, building additional protection or using trees to limit noise, and training people
for new kinds of jobs.

There are four major guidelines for devising mitigation actions:

 Identify the mitigation actions that most reduce the impacts, and that are practical and
feasible to integrate into the planned alternatives.
 Identify mitigation actions that reduce the severity of the impacts to the lowest
possible level over the lifetime of the project, to avoid irreversibly and cumulative
effects.
 Include activities designed to monitor compliance with agreements established in the
assessment, and provide specific and timely information on the environmental
conditions and social variables in the area under study.
 Identify potential risks of accidents, malfunctions and other emergencies that may
occur during all the project phases.
The mitigation hierarchy is a widely accepted approach for environmental conservation. It is
a set of prioritized steps to limit negative impacts as far as possible through avoidance,
mitigation (or reduction), restoration, and offsetting (compensation).
Impact assessment and mitigation is done by a multidisciplinary team of experts who have
the skills and qualifications to assess diverse environmental and social impacts.
The team begins by systematically assessing the impacts of the planned project and its
alternatives, using one or more assessment methods, such as those described in the
downloadable resource Impact Assessment Methods. Ideally, it would also carry out
a Social Impact Assessment (SIA). The outcomes of these assessments are then summarized
in the form of a matrix.

These are the key steps for conducting impact assessment and related mitigation:
1. Perform a detailed assessment of impacts of all project phases on the environment,
socioeconomic systems and other areas as requested by the designated agency’s
guidelines and legislation, taking into consideration regional and international best
practices.
2. Based on the completed analyses, conduct an assessment of cumulative impacts.
3. Compile similar impacts into groups in order to make the impact analyses easier to
understand.
4. Identify mitigation actions to eliminate and/or reduce the identified impacts.
5. Identify specific mitigation measures to reduce cumulative impacts.
Once the more significant environmental impacts have been identified and placed in order
(according to either the construction or operational phase) and according to relevant
environmental factors, the impacts are then evaluated according to Matrix of Importance of
Environmental Impact (MIIA). This methodology scores each of the identified environmental
impacts from 1 to 100, to produce a total score of environmental impacts generated by the
activity or work.

The outcomes of the impacts assessment and mitigation include:

1. A list of impacts and description of the severity of the impacts over the lifetime of the
project in the context of the environmental, social, cultural and aesthetic resources
and issues using the Leopold Matrix.
2. A grouping of similar types of impacts using the MIIA methodology.
3. A list of mitigation actions linked to the groups of impacts.
4. The presentation of the groups of impacts and related mitigation measures in a table.

Mitigation Plans and Relief &Rehabilitation

The immediate lifesaving response time is much shorter than humanitarian organizations
recognize. In a matter of weeks, if not days, the concerns of both the population and
authorities shift from search and rescue and trauma care to the rehabilitation of infrastructure
(temporary restoration of basic services and reconstruction). In Banda Aceh, Indonesia, after
the December 2004 tsunami, victims were eager to return to normalcy while external medical
relief workers were still arriving in large numbers.

Response and Rehabilitation

Immediate emergency response is provided under a highly political and emotional climate.
The public demands visible, albeit perhaps unnecessary, measures at the expense of proven
low-key approaches. The international community, eager to demonstrate its solidarity or to
exercise its"right of humanitarian intervention, "undertakes its own relief effort on the basis
of the belief that local health services are unwilling or unable to respond. Donations of
useless medical supplies and medicines and the belated arrival of medical or fact-finding
teams add
to the stress of local staff members who may be personally affected by the disaster. The cultural
disregard of the humanitarian community to cost-effective approaches in times of disaster and
the tendency to base decisions on perceptions and myths rather than on facts and lessons
learned in past disasters contribute to making disaster relief one of the least cost- effective
health activities.
The responsibilities of the national or local health authorities are significant.

Emergency Preparedness of the Health Sector

Effective response by national health authorities cannot be impromptu. Ministries of health
that neglected to invest in capacity building before emergencies have generally experienced
serious difficulties in exercising their technical and political leadership in the immediate
aftermath of a disaster. Disaster preparedness is primarily a matter of building institutional
capacity and human resources, not one of investing heavily in advanced technology and
equipment.
Building local coping capacity is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve the quality
of the national response and the external interventions.
Disaster preparedness is not merely having a disaster plan written by experts. It must involve
the following:
 Identifying vulnerability to natural or other hazards. The health sector should seek
information and collaborate with other sectors and institutions (civil protection,
meteorology, environment, geology) that have the primary responsibility for
collecting and analyzing this information.
 Building simple and realistic health scenarios of a possible and probable occurrence.
It is challenging enough to prepare for a moderate-size disaster; building and
sustaining a culture of fear based on unrealistic worst-case scenarios may serve the
corporate interests of the disaster community but not the interests of the public at
large.
 Initiating a participative process among the main actors to develop a basic plan that
outlines the responsibilities of each actor in the health sector (key departments of the
ministry of health, medical corps of the armed forces, private sector, NGOs, UN
agencies, and donors). What matters is the process of identifying possible overlaps or
gaps and building a consensus—not the paper plan itself. Disasters often present
problems that are unforeseen in the most detailed plans.
 Maintaining a close collaboration with these main actors. A good coordinator is one
who appreciates and adapts to the strengths and weaknesses of other institutions.
Stability is essential. Changes of key emergency staff members during a disaster
situation or when a new administration or minister take over have occasionally
complicated the tasks.
 Sensitizing and training the first health responders and managers to face the special
challenges of responding to disasters. Participation of external actors (UN agencies,
donors, or NGOs) in designing and implementing the training is critical. The
incorporation of disaster management in the academic curriculum of medical, nursing,
and public health schools should complement the on-the-job training programs of the
ministry of health, UN agencies, and NGOs. Well-designed disaster management
training programs will improve the management of daily medical emergencies
and accidents as well.