Sustainable System: Limit to Growth, EIA Project Approval & WA Case

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of sustainable systems and the limits to growth, particularly focusing on Australia's strategies for addressing these issues. It examines key learnings related to resource depletion, energy prices, and population control. The report details the steps required to obtain approval for a project requiring Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in New South Wales (NSW), including screening, scoping, impact prediction, and generating the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). It also discusses common pitfalls in EIA practice and strategies to overcome them, using examples from journal articles and book chapters. Furthermore, the report includes an environmental impact assessment of a hypothetical development activity in Perth, Western Australia, covering environmental screening, impact prediction, and mitigation measures. Finally, it proposes a strategy to reduce road congestion, drawing on a case study of the Cross River Rail project in Queensland, emphasizing the use of Environmental Impact Assessment as a tool for managing the activity.

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Q1. Key learnings in terms of limit to growth. What are the means by which Australia is
now tackling these issues? (4%)
According to the article “Revisiting the Limits to Growth After Peak Oil” there are some crucial
learning which can be noted down in terms of limit to growth. The limit to growth theory used in
the 1972 research was a simulation of independent economic and growth of population with
regards in mind that there was finite supply of the available resources.The key learnings we see
in this article are as follows;
Depletion of oil products.
Oil is a non-renewable product and according to the said article findings by that time showed that
there were no new oils dwells discovered and hence it was evidently that after some years there
would be a depletion of the resources due high population is over using them.
The Australian government, NESA report found out that Australia's liquid oil would deteriorate
at a very high margin. This was possible if a concrete security policy would not be put in place
for enactment. Hence to prevent this deterioration of the product the Australian government has
developed a security policy which provides and suggests other alternative reliable and diverse
energy systems rather than oil products. (Aph.gov.au, 2018)
Prices of energy and food stuffs
The rate at which the world population growth is rising is high. This makes some commodities
like oil products and food stuffs to be in high demand and the result of this is that when a
commodity is in high demand on constant supply, its prices tend to rise significantly. Other
factors that have caused this increase in regard to human population is transportation costs,
weather changes, among others, (ABC news 2018). According to the article findings, it was
concluded that there would be a rigid down cut of oil supply since there was no new sources
which were discovered. But newer studies proved otherwise. All the above issues led to high
prices of items. (Forbes.com, 2018)
Human population is self-controlling.
According to Ecologist Paul Ehrlich in his article of the population bomb, population growth rate
would create havoc on nature, food stuffs and people´s health but again the Malthusian processes

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would come in to control the growth and bring it to capacity, this processes included; deaths,
deadly wars, famine and droughts.
The Australian population policy is already in place. Rather than the policy aiming at particular
populationtotal, it emphasizes on the significance of sustainability and development as one of the
goals and also the population policy has a goal of preventing excessive population from piling up
through a large fertility rate, (The Conversation, 2018)
Q2. Describe the steps one needs to follow to obtain approval for a project that requires
EIA in one of your chosen state. Please choose the state as per the guide below. If you want
to change some steps in the procedure what would you change? (5%)
State selection guide: NSW (ID ending in 0-1), SA (ID ending in 2-3), VIC (ID ending in 3-
4), QLD (ID ending in 5-6, WA (7-9).
ID no: 19325040
Environmental impact assessment has been a very crucial component over the years since it
ensures that the potential and likely-to-occur problems are forecasted and addressed at a very
early phase of planning and design. Environmental impact assessment provides some steps
which should be followed in order for it to approve a project (Anon, 2018). EIA systems are
important since they ensuresocio-economic progresses schemes to environmental protection and
eventually ensure sustainable commercial development. These steps include;
Screening
Two questions arise at these very starting stage; what are the end effects that this development
will cause to the environment? And will there be any significance by these effects? A project
developer identifies a need and after accessing all the design and sites, he/she determines the
answer to the second question and if the answer is that there will be a significance then an
Environmental Impact Assessment will be needed. The above process is referred to as screening,
(Sheate, 2018).
Scoping
After screening process has been considered and an Environmental Impact Assessment has been
required, the next thing the project developer should do is to define the issues and the effects that
need to be addressed concerning the environment. This action of addressing the impacts is

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known as scoping and is vital for focusing on resources available on concerned issues, (Sheate,
2018).
Impact prediction and assessment
Collection of relevant data and information about status of the surroundings is done as this stage.
This creates a baseline for development measuring. Once that is done, impact forecasting begins
and it involves prediction of likely to occur changes in the forerun of developing the project.
This follows the assessment of the impacts forecasted. Interpretation of the vitality of the impacts
leads to a conclusion which can be used in resolution making and also be used to determine the
project approval(Wilkinson, 2014 p.167-168).
Generating the significance environmental impact statement (EIS)
EIA is usually in form of a document which is known as environmental impact statement which
contains factual data about the project development and all other information collected in
previous stages and it is usually presented in a non-technical format.
Upon submission of EIS to the competent authorities, they make the decision on whether to
refuse or to permit the development of the project
Q3. How did practitioners overcome the pitfalls of EIA? Select two pitfalls to answer your
question. Use journal articles/book chapters (other than the one given in the class) to
describe this.
Environmental Impact Assessment requirements are sometimes circumvented by units and
parties responsible (Ortolano and Shepherd, 2012 p.3-30).Sometimes the government unit or the
practitioner which/who has being assigned the responsibility of giving a decision on whether any
project requires EIA become biased and give discretion decisions even where the environmental
impacts are being affected. EIA community involves many parties so that it can be a success and
hence the practitioners. Some of the pitfalls experienced by many countries include; delays of
approval, high costs to proponents and poor decisions.These pitfalls of environmental impact
assessment come up due to issues like; poor quality of training of proponents, poor commitments
of EIA parties, problems with institutional arrangements among others,(Ortolano and Shepherd,
2012 p.3-30)

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Environmental projects are not fully protected. Projects like rivers are not ensured by EIA. This
is seen as a challenge since these environmental infrastructures depend on EIA to be
impactreduced and analyzed (Fisher, 2018). The EIA practitioners often weigh whether
environmentally damaging projects have more economic outcomes than environmental impacts.
If so they abandon the environmental projects. The top-downapproach to deal with improvement
that underlies the construction of enormous infrastructure ventures has little in the same way as
the sorts of methodologies expected to secure local livelihoodsand biological systems.(Fisher,
2018).
Environmental Impact Assessmentdoesn’tintegrate fully into planning. A good example is when
a program decision to construct dams or channels to regulate water floods rules out the
deliberation of flood proofing zones as options to minimize damages brought about by foods.
EIA is usually criticized for establishing poor quality and bureaucratic process. The argument
which is usually tabled is that EIA is not fully integrating into decision making, (Ortolano and
Shepherd, 2012 p.3-30)
Q4. Consider a development activity in a square kilometer area within Australia and
conduct environmental impact assessment
Google map above showing WA, EPA, Perth in Australia within a square kilometre area

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Location.
The projected activity is clearly shown in the map above and the place is Western Australia,
Perth. It was not possible to preview the terrain of the area from Google map.
Description of the activity
The intended development activity is to reduce congestion on the road on East Perth road.
The following steps will be used to develop the environmental impact assessment;
Environmental screening where this development activity requires environmental impact
assessment.
Environmental scoping which will identify the key environmental issues
Impact prediction and assessment of the site and surroundings areas
Reporting and generating a report, (Sheate, 2018).
Environmental screening
This involves all the processes and all the insights that will have an impact on the environment.
In all development sites, some waste or by-items are typically delivered on the venture site.
These squanders incorporate; broken glasses, bits of broken tiles, nails, bits of broken wood
among others. The proponent will emphasize on productivity to limit development squanders,
(King & O'Malley 2012 p.123-132).This is where the identification of the potentials to cause
harm to the environmentare noted. It is a tool for incorporating environmental sustainability into
projects and is used for the identification of significant environmental aspects and impacts,
(Sheate, 2018).
Mitigation measures
All workers and visitors will be provided with appropriate safety/protective equipment and gear
while on site.The employees will be further trained on safety measures.Delivery and storage of
materials at appropriate locations will be at par. Standards and legal requirements will be
adhered to.The project proponent and contractor will take appropriate insurance cover for
thevarious project activities and personnel.
Impact prediction and assessment
This is where the impacts are anticipated. The existing impacts are, there is already noise from
public service vehicles. In addition, there are projected impacts which are both positive and
negative and some of themare that there will be pollution of air, noise, and oil waste among

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others. During the construction process, health threats will only be limited to the workers on site
during operation time and no one else. There will also be changes in the land use where even
initial pathways will be reconstructed. Among the positive impacts that are projected, there will
be no congestion of motor vehicles anymore.
Recommendations
A fully equipped first aid kit should be provided within the site. Also the contractor should
provide adequate security during the construction period so as to safeguard all the resources
available for development.All solid waste materials and debris resulting from construction
activities should be disposed of, at approved dumpsites. (Wilkinson, 2014, p.167-168).
Q5. A strategy to control the behavior depending on the digit your ID is ending with. Your
answer should include research on strategies adopted in other countries of similar
socioeconomic status to the country you are designing the strategy
My ID is ending with 0 and hence the behavior that is associated with it, is – reducing congestion
on a specific section of a road.
As the urban and regional populations continue to increase at a high rate, the quest for inter-
regional and also intra-regional mobility & transportation also increase a lot. The argument that
is posed by many is whether to increase the capacity of the mode of transport or to develop
additional capacity to support the additional transport demand and public means of travel (Jain,
and Subramanian, 2012). Decongestion of a road means that there will be influence on the
transport choices, access, mobility patterns and also the economic development of the city.
Taking a case study of Cross River Rail in July 2011, where there was a need to react on the
patronage growth and congestion of people on the south East Queensland passenger rail network.
The project was supposed to provide capacity to address growth in transport demand arising
from high population growth, relieve pressure on other modes of transport e.g. private cars, or
buses, get rid of demand clashes between commuters and freight rail services. The intended
environmental goals and objectives were; to use transport more efficiently, minimize the
greenhouse gas and also other environmental gases emissions by reducing the chances of using
public and active transport and most keenly to minimize the transport demand.

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Environmental Impact Assessment is an example of soft tool which will be embraced to develop
the strategy to control the whole activity of decongesting the road. The case study of the cross
river rail will be still considered. The construction phase will be the mitigation step of the
environmental impact assessment, (Xu, Tan & Yang 2013 p.115-125). The findings that are
anticipated according to the mitigation step are as follows; the impacts and inconveniences
caused would be temporal and limited, noises and vibrations impacts from underground would
last for few days, the effects would be felt more along the vicinity of worksites in all cities
involves. Other mitigation impacts would include flooding, redevelopments of the land which
was used for the project among others, (Jain, and Subramanian, 2012).
The other procedure which follows is impact prediction and assessment. This is a major transport
project requiring significant efforts to develop. Cross rail way project should be able to exhibit
very well that it has strategically and designed in a way that sustainability and efficiency are
maximized fully and also that it is able to deliver and develop the road in a way sensitive to the
environment (Harveyand Clarke, 2012). The assessed measures of the project included were;
Measures to enhance health and social welfare of individuals, Reduce water demand measures
and Measures on how to integrate with the existing modes of transport.
The next strategyis drafting and generating a well detailed Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS). EIS is usually a document which contains factual information about the project
development and all other information collected in previous steps.
After generating the EIS document to the authorities it was to be either approved or rejected. If
approved the project was to proceed with the development processes(Sheate, 2018).

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References
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