Orientate myself to find the land parcel I wish to assess? Understand the biodiversity context of a land parcel? Know when to appoint a specialist botanist to conduct an assessment? Find the relavent Biodiversity information for a Municipality? Find out about listed threatened ecosystems for a municipality?

Environmental Assessment

An environmental assessment is a systematic process that ensures the biodiversity implications for the site of a project or planning proposal are taken into account before decisions are made.

The environmental assessment process involves reporting on the likely effects on the biodiversity, undertaking a public consultation exercise on the report (where necessary), taking these comments and the report into account when making the final decision and finally informing the public of that decision.

An environmental assessment is typically called for during:

• Pre-application biodiversity screening
• Initial impact assessment or site sensitivity analysis
• Scoping
• Sub-division or rezoning

There are three main steps (follow the links below or click on the images to the right):

1. Orientation - locate the site, work out how to get there, and have the means to record information on a map
2. Contextualisation - familiarise yourself with the biodiversity context of the site, which includes identifying potential ‘red flags’ that could either influence the proposed development or trigger the next step; which is
3. Investigation - appointing a biodiversity specialist to advise on the project planning or environmental assessment process.

If consulted sufficiently early in project planning, biodiversity information hosted on the BGIS website can make an important contribution to an efficient and informed planning  process. These benefits include:

1. Indicating the potential significance of biodiversity as a factor in decision-making
2. Suggesting the degree of effort that may be needed to find a suitable alternative to avoid significant loss of biodiversity or ecosystem function in a particular area
3. Highlighting from the outset the potential need to appoint a biodiversity specialist during project planning and design, and
4. Savings in time and expense by knowing the potential biodiversity implications up-front.

How to use the BGIS tools

  Go to Orientation