The Interplay of Environmental Assessment Methods; Characterising the Institutional Background in Egypt

Abstract

The paper presents an “Analytical Interdisciplinary Methodological Framework” (AIMF) to promote the institutional role of environmental assessment in Egypt. This is based on two main factors; the institutional procedure and application implementation, as well as factors influencing the decision-making process. The study starts with reviewing the levels of environmental assessment; Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA); noting that each level builds from its subsequent level in an attempt to constitute an additive cumulative benefit. This analysis is coupled with structured interviews and designed questionnaires for local planning professionals to investigate the external and internal factors affecting the application of environmental assessment systems in Egypt. This is developed into an interlacing scheme of a sort of continuous process that considers their application status, construction of systems, country laws, and technical aspects. A scoring evaluation matrix has been distributed among the same group of planning professionals to compare the current status and proposed framework of environmental assessment. Eventually, this qualitative investigation provides a novel approach for characterising the institutional background of environmental assessment in Egypt while exploring the interplay and progression between these successive levels of assessment, particularly for low and middle-income countries such as Egypt.