THE EIA SYSTEM AND HAZARD MANAGEMENT OF SEDIMENT-RELATED DISASTER IN JAPAN — A CASE STUDY IN WIND FARM PROJECTS

Abstract

Japan suffers many sediment-related disasters due to intense rainfall and other geographical and meteorological features. This paper aims to clarify the potential role and challenges of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as a hazard management tool of sediment-related disaster, through surveys of the regulatory framework and analyses of case studies of wind farm projects. Based on the analysis, this paper mainly obtains the following conclusions: (1) One of the important roles of the EIA is to identify potential hazards of sediment-related disaster, because a large proportion of the projects involve potential hazards in terms of the siting, nevertheless, few of EIAs evaluate the hazards; (2) Long-term monitoring is a needed and essential role for EIA because, while re-vegetation would be carried out as a hazard mitigation on average for half the area with land change, in some cases re-vegetation has not been successful in 5 years since the implementation; (3) Improvements in the EIA system are required in order to be able to integrate the various features of hazardous information, including non-legally binding hazardous areas and local knowledge, into a common consideration for robust hazard management.