Editorial 2018–3

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the third issue of IAPA in 2018!

I have just been to Helsinki (Finland) where I attended the hugely interesting ‘EIALAW 2018’ conference (http://www.yvary.fi/eialaw2018/), organised by the University of Eastern Finland and the Finish EIA Association. The purpose of this international event was to share first experiences with the new European EIA Directive (2014/52/EU). In this context, the main question asked was ‘how to combine streamlining with environmental effectiveness’. Presentations and interventions were provided by experts from various EU member states and Canada (the latter a reflection on ‘what constitutes a sound EIA system’). All European presentations showed various similarities as well as differences in the challenges associated with implementing the new Directive. Key EIA challenges in nine EU members states (Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Poland, Germany, Slovenia, Malta, The Netherlands and the UK) were identified in the end-of-day panel discussion. These are in line with the challenges identified by the various papers on the implications of the new Directive on practices in 15 EU member states that were published in 2016 in two special issues of the journal of the German EIA Association ‘UVP Report’ (http://www.uvp.de/de/uvp-report/jg30/jg30h2 and http://www.uvp.de/de/uvp-report/jg30/jg30h3). Challenges in all countries were said to include:

•	how to deal with and (fully) assess and report on different alternatives in EIA;
•	how to implement EIA quality control;
•	how to assess human health and climate change in EIA;
•	how to design transparent and fully accessible EIA data bases;
•	how to create a system that acknowledges competent EIA experts and authorities;
•	how to integrate and streamline EIA more effectively; and
•	how to conduct effective EIA follow-up.

We will hopefully see a range of papers exploring how these challenges are addressed in the various EU member states here in IAPA in the near future.

There are a number of further IA events planned for 2018 that are worth mentioning here. Apart from this year’s IAIA annual meeting in May in Durban, South Africa, two special IAIA symposia are organised in 2018 (http://www.iaia.org/symposia.php). These include ‘using impact assessment to achieve the sustainable development goals in Asia’ from 1 to 3 October in Kuching (Malaysia) and ‘improving IA and Management in the Mining Sector’ in London (UK), 4 to 5 December. Furthermore, apart from various national IA events that are scheduled for this year (for e.g. national Portuguese, Brazilian and German EIA gatherings; https://sites.google.com/view/cnai18/p%C3%A1gina-inicial; http://cbai2018.com.br/; http://www.uvp.de/de/14-uvp-kongress-2018), another international event, which I believe is particularly worth mentioning is the Nordic Baltic Impact Assessment Conference on ‘Environmental Considerations in Changing Planning Systems: Theory and Perspectives of Impact Assessment’. This will take place from 30 September to 2 October in Tallinn, Estonia (see here http://www.tlu.ee/en/nordicbaltic2018).

This issue of IAPA includes six full papers and four book reviews. Full papers focus on aspects of participation in IA, knowledge management in IAs prepared in urban contexts, learning through EIA, an ecosystem approach to post-mining land use, ecosystem services in EA and social impact of products. Practices in Canada, Sweden, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and the US are highlighted by authors from institutions in Sweden, Brazil, Canada and the US. Enjoy reading!

Thomas B Fischer
editor-in-chief
[email protected]