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• Regional Environmental Impact Assessment

Regional Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)

Research Aim 1.3 – Develop a new Environmental Impact Assessment for the Ross Sea region and tools to support its application (Regional EIA).

Unlike the existing types of EIA that focus on the localised effects of a single activity (e.g. a field event or a new facility), we will develop an EIA for the Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP) that will take an holistic view that incorporates the current and future states of key environmental attributes, historical impacts of existing equipment in the field, and the cumulative impacts of the numerous field events. Our objective is to contribute to the goals outlined by Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) and provide the starting point for an integrated and, comprehensive approach to the Antarctic conservation.

The new EIA will require both a significant amount of data and the types of analyses proposed within this Programme. To help implement the regional-scale EIA, we will develop a spatial tool to visualise and query the data and analyses. This tool will enable policy makers to apply the new EIA and assist decision making.