Monitoring

Monitoring is the stage in the EIA process that is most neglected in both the formal requirements and in practice. Nevertheless, compliance monitoring clearly is important if actual environmental impacts are to be minimised and to improve the quality of predictions for future proposals. With the rise of environmental management systems, monitoring is becoming more common, although often not linked directly to the EIA.

Public involvement should continue as the project is implemented with the aim of ensuring continuing confidence in the developer through independent scrutiny of monitoring results.