Since the 1960s, a growing` environmental awareness has increasingly focused attention on the interactions between development activities and their environmental consequences. In the developed countries this has led the environmental factors be explicitly considered in the decision-making processes. A similar situation is now occurring in Korea and China. In this regard, this study aims at contributing to a better knowledge of environmental conservation policies in both countries through the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) systems.



This report is divided into twinfolds of EIA systems and case studies in Korea and China. The first part of the report reveals that although the EIA systems in both countries were initiated in 1980s, the actual supporting policies and actions began in the early 1990s. In Korea, the EIA Act was enacted in 1993, and this has been replaced by the Integrated Impact Assessment Act in December 1999. The independent law of EIA has been adopted in 2002 and enacted in September 2003 in China. Based on the current EIA regulations, while activities requiring EIA consists of 62 project types in 17 fields in Korea, China utilize the screening methods to decide the activities subject to the three EIA categories of Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), Environmental Impact Report Form, and Environmental Impact Registration Form. The EIA investigations are incorporated in an EIS, reversing Korean procedures in ter`minology. The newly adopted Chinese EIA Act includes the public participation as one of the processes while public hearing ha