Environmental impact assessment (EIA) screening and scoping of extraterrestrial exploration and development projects

ABSTRACT

Numerous space missions are planned by government agencies and private companies, with objectives including scientific research, prospecting for and mining resources, and establishing human settlements. These projects have potential to affect the extraterrestrial environment. Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is an important tool for assessing the potential impact of projects on Earth’s environment. However, the legal requirements to undertake EIA for extraterrestrial projects are limited and most EIAs that have been conducted have not considered impacts beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Technical barriers to extraterrestrial EIA also need to be overcome, including a lack of guidelines and methodologies. This paper addresses the latter issue by identifying the extraterrestrial impacts that may arise from space projects and relating them to the environmental topic areas in the European EIA Directive. An example is then provided of how EIA screening and scoping can be undertaken for the extraterrestrial elements of space projects, using six scenarios. Effective EIA screening and scoping is key to deciding whether EIA is required and if so which topic areas should be included.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental impact assessment
• EIA
• screening
• scoping
• extraterrestrial environment
• outer space

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Jessica Delaval, ESA’s Clean Space Coordinator, for providing information on ESA’s approach to LCA for space activities and to Margaret S. Race, Petra Rettberg, Rajeswari Rajagopalan and Jinyuan Su for providing copies of articles. The author is also grateful to the two anonymous referees who made valuable comments on the submitted manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.