ID: 1589
Presenting Author: Virginie DEFROMONT
Session: 520 - Connecting infrastructure and IA – Assessing impacts in contested planning
Status: pending
Sharing experiences on the evolution of environmental assessments of linear transport infrastructure in France and presentation of best practical applications.
The impact assessment is an essential tool for linear transport infrastructure project leaders to properly integrate environmental issues into their project development. It also helps inform decision-makers, inform the public, and facilitate their participation. This tool, which has been in France for 40 years, has developed over time in line with evolving knowledge, European and French law, and always with the aim of better considering the environment in projects.
Thus, environmental assessments of transport infrastructure in France have evolved significantly over the past few decades:
• They have become more complex, meeting the expectations of the assessing authorities, to ensure completeness and comprehensiveness.
• They evolve as the infrastructure project progresses and is defined.
• They are shared with the public, but they remain voluminous and complex for the uninitiated.
Despite this, opposition to highway projects, high-speed rail lines, and canals has never been so strong.
The purposes of this presentation are:
• To share this approach through feedback from more than 30 years of conducting impact studies on linear transport infrastructure (motorways: creation and widening, railways: high-speed lines, wide-gauge waterways) in France,
• And to present best practice cases.
Virginie DEFROMONT is an independent environmental consultant, specializing in environmental assessments of major infrastructure projects (HSL, waterways, highways) for 30 years.