Southwest
Environmental LimitedSouthwest
Environmental Limited| London |
| 02076 920 670 |
| Exeter |
| 01392 927 961 |
| Manchester |
| 01612 970 026 |
| Bristol |
| 01173 270 092 |
There is a growing consensus amongst industry professionals that EIAs should be Web Published, accessible anywhere via your Web Browser, the reasons for this are numerous:
Environmental Impact Assessments are renowned for being very very large documents. We anticipate that with the growth in use of digital media in virtually every other sphere that it may well become a requirement that Environmental Impact Assessments are provided in Web Based Format.
This represents a very clear advantage in that the Environmental Impact Assessment can be made accessible to whoever requires to view it. The typical list of stakeholders is long, so this presents a significant advantage especially when one considers that revisions can be made to the web resource on route to the final draft.
Content drill down is also increased with links being used to jump from conclusive text to detailed data in a matter of milliseconds. What's more the viewing of the EIA document is done through the common web browser, which any computer user is familiar with and often to a point where they are high skilled as searching content and using multiple tabs and book marks to aid multi-tasking.
There are many many companies who cam provide a website, content management systems have resulted in virtually any computer literate person being able to create and administer website. However at SWEL your Environmental Impact Web Resource will be constructed by Environmental Professionals.
Key staff members within SWEL have been authoring Environmental Web content for 15 years plus. We know how to make a readily accessible web platform, as simply as possible which complies with major search engine requirements, and contains minimum code so as to pass over maximum reliability and speed of use on virtually any device.
This is an important value added service. By involving Environmental Professionals in the creation of the web resource, we can ensure that appropriate links are made between key areas. For example links between wetland habitat creation and flood risk.
A small Environmental Impact Assessment can run to 500 plus pages. A large Environmental Impact Assessment can contain many thousands of pages. It is of course not sufficient to read conclusions with out verify the data on which they are based is sound. However, in practice this lead to thumbing through many sheets of paer, or scrolling down in documents through many pages of data.
There are a growing number of regulatory enforcers (planning officers, planning inspectors, environment agency staff & other stakeholders) that work part time. It is not conceivable that they carry around 1000's of pages of reporting with them. As an alternative a web interface is provided where easy access can be obtained, whether in the office, at home or whilst travelling. The above described process is as inefficient as it laborious.
A web interface offers so much more in the way of media than a paper or PDF report. Video showing animation of site tours can be nested amongst text to provide readers with a previously unviable dimension. The old saying is that a picture is worth 1000 words. Is a video worth 10,000?
The video is particularly useful in the Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment section of an Environmental Statement. It can be used to present "fly over" visualizations so that readers can appreciate the scale of the proposed development in the landscape. It can also be used to show drone footage taken at elevated vantage points.
Ecological content can be linked to Species and Designation information so that detail can be sought where needed. Copywrite information such as Maps or Research papers can be linked without any "actual" copying.
There are so many possibilities to enrich the EIA process, through the use of a web resource that is virtually impossible to list them all here. In short, it will make navigation of a Environmental Impact Assessment Report no more difficult than browsing the pages of Wikipedia.