'IAIA13 Conference Proceedings' Impact Assessment the Next Generation 33 rd Annual Meeting of the International Association for Impact Assessment 13 – 16 May 2013, Calgary Stampede BMO Centre | Calgary, Alberta, Canada (www.iaia.org) Health within EIA in the UK and India (Abstract 588) Urmila Jha-Thakur a , Thomas Fischer a , Vincent Onyango b and Pawan Labhasetwar c a Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool (UK) b Town and Regional Planning, University of Dundee (UK) c National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (India) Abstract (ID 588) This paper explores the perception of health within EIA in a developed country (UK) and a developing country (India). The benefits of considering human health within EIA have long been established and yet the instrument has been criticised for failing to adequately assess the broad range of human health determinants resulting from developments. So far in the UK, attempts have been made to integrate health with strategic environmental assessment (SEA), however such integration at project level is still lacking. In terms of India, very little research has been conducted in exploring the inclusion of health issues within EIA in any developing countries and the Indian scenario can help to improve understanding here. In the paper, the results of two online surveys conducted in the respective countries are presented. Key Words: Health, Environmental Impact Assessment, India, UK Session: Using Health Impact Assessment to Achieve Sustainable Goals. Setting the Context Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is practiced in more than 120 countries world-wide and has been instrumental in incorporating environmental considerations into the decision-making process. Within the EU, it has been 25 years since the EIA Directive was adopted. India too has had experience with EIA for the last 25 years. There should therefore be some scope for enhancing mutual learning by reflecting on practices in the UK (a developed country) and India (a developing country). Furthermore, whilst the benefits of considering human health within EIA have long been established, the instrument has been criticised for failing to adequately assess the broad range of human health determinants resulting from developments (Harris et al, 2009). The limited range of studies conducted in this field to date suggest that current EIA practice fails to define health appropriately, do not consider the full range of health impacts and do not maximise any potential health benefits resulting from developments (Steinemann, 2000). To date, in the UK, some more serious attempts have been made to integrate health with strategic environmental assessment (SEA) (Fischer et al, 2010); however such integration at project level is still lacking (Harris et al, 2009). So far very little research has been conducted in exploring the inclusion of health issues within EIA in developing countries where the vulnerability of population to impacts from development projects is often perceived to be particularly high. With growing problems associated with suburban sprawl, deforestation and climate change on human populations, addressing health issues within EIA is seen to be of great importance (Bhatia & Wernham, 2008). Therefore, the aim of this paper is to explore how health is currently addressed within EIA practice in the UK and India. Evolution of EIA in India and the UK The existence of EIA both, in India and the UK dates back to the 1970s. In the UK, initial interest was connected to the oil drilling activities in Scotland while in India EIA was introduced as an administrative measure in 1978-79 mainly for river valley projects and later extended to industrial projects (Arts et al, 2012; Jha-Thakur and Fischer, 2008). As a formal requirement, EIA was brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by University of Liverpool Repository