Abstract
This study aims to survey whether local governments have legislated laws and regulations on environment impact assessment system, to compare and analyze specific projects and their scale, assessment items, and procedures & discussion process, to identify issues and generate improvement plans, and to suggest a direction for future legislation to local governments that plan to legislate laws and regulations in the future. Major outcome of the study are as follows. First, terminologies used for environment impact assessment by local governments need to be unified. Also, laws and regulations need to be legislated soon. Second, in "urban development project" areas, a total of nine project areas including "quarrying of soil and stone, sand, gravel, and minerals" was essential common projects. A total of six project types were added or newly established compared to national systems. Among them, four project types were added within national-level project areas and two project types were not available under the national-level project areas and newly added due to the nature of local governments. Third, in terms of project scale, scale enhancement of "urban development project" was most common. Analysis showed that in case of clean natural environment such as Cheju Island, it is necessary to consider reinforcing project areas where development activities take place directly in forests or rivers such as "industrial base and complex development", "water resource development", and "development of tourism complex." Fourth, the discussion and review procedures of assessment reports were similar to those at government level. However, in case of Seoul city, it is required to write a "preparation plan" before drafting an assessment report. The city features partial introduction of scoping and screening, which allows to exempt discussion procedures if impact on environment is found to be minimal after drafting the assessment report. In case of national-level, it has a dual system that is split between Ministry of Construction and Transportation and Ministry of Environment. However, in case of environment impact assessment of local governments, it is a single system where city mayors and provincial governors are in charge of both project execution and environmental assessment. Therefore, the most important task is how to satisfy objectiveness and accountability.
