Abstract

The main scientific bibliography addressing the rationale behind ecological compensation is reviewed in order to examine general guidelines. This contains interesting general guidance on how to implement compensation, and provides the basis for future developments in compensation practice. On this basis, we propose a further step in compensation practice, advancing compensation proposals or rules for specific kinds of projects and contexts, focusing on road projects in the Spanish Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Three main residual impacts of roads are identified which usually remain uncompensated for: the loss of natural and semi-natural land use, the increase in emissions resulting from any new road, and the fragmentation, severance or barrier effect on the landscape and its wildlife. To counteract these, four proposals, or "rules", are advanced: conservation of natural and semi-natural land use area, conservation of dominant plant species physiognomy, compensation for emissions, and the rule of positive defragmentation. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Environmental Impact Assessment; Offsets; Sustainability; No net loss; Net ecological gain

Published in

Environmental Impact Assessment Review
2014, Volume: 45, pages: 54-62
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC

SLU Authors

• Persson, Jesper

  • Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure


UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology


Publication Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2013.12.003

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/53234