The role of monitoring in supporting environmental improvement

Monitoring is an essential part of the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) process. It measures whether the environmental impacts of a project are as expected and determines whether mitigation measures are effective. This allows for adaptive management throughout a project lifecycle and can be used to support greater understanding of the effectiveness of different mitigation methods, which in turn can be used to improve future project EIAs. However, monitoring can also be challenging and resource-intensive, so it is essential that we develop robust monitoring methodologies that can be used to inform future EIAs and project design.  

This EIA Community discussion explored the role of monitoring in projects and how it can be used to support environmental improvement. The event featured insightful lightning presentations, touching on both construction-phase monitoring and operational-phase monitoring.

The event brought together environmental professionals from across specialisms working in EIAs, the built environment and construction to support interdisciplinary learning and discussion.

The presentations provided examples of where construction-phase and operational-phase monitoring have been done on nationally significant infrastructure projects, and the challenges and opportunities involved in these. They also considered how monitoring methods can be developed to support feasible and effective monitoring plans.  

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