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Environmental Impact Assessment, ecosystems services and the case of energy crops in England

journal contribution
posted on 2012-05-14, 08:44 authored by Alastor M. Coleby, Dan van der Horst, Klaus Hubacek, Chris GoodierChris Goodier, Paul J. Burgess, Anil Graves, Richard Lord, David Howard
A consequence of the increased requirements for renewable energy is likely to be allocation of more land to bio-energy crop production. Recent regulatory changes in England, as in other parts of the UK, mean that changes in land-use are increasingly subject to screening through Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). This paper reviews these regulatory changes and explores the potential benefits of incorporating a fuller examination of ecosystem services within EIA procedures. The authors argue that such an approach could help achieve sustainability by identifying the best options within an area, rather than concentrating on the negative effects of selected proposed projects. It could also help highlight the benefits provided by existing and proposed agricultural, forestry, peri-urban and urban systems. However, successful implementation of an ecosystem services approach would also require a greater understanding of the societal preferences for the full range of ecosystem services at a landscape scale, aswell as the trade-offs and synergies between uses of specific services.

History

School

  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Citation

COLEBY, A.M. ... et al, 2012. Environmental Impact Assessment, ecosystems services and the case of energy crops in England. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 55 (3), pp. 369-385.

Version

  • NA (Not Applicable or Unknown)

Publication date

2012

Notes

This article was published in the journal, Journal of Environmental Planning and Management [© Taylor & Francis] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2011.603958

ISSN

0964-0568

eISSN

1360-0559

Language

  • en