Project title / Titlul proiectului: Benefits and constraints of joint decision making in Romania. From public participation to collaborative Environmental Impact Assessment / Beneficiile și constrângerile luării deciziilor de comun acord în România. De la participarea publicului la procedura colaborativă de Evaluare a Impactului asupra Mediului
Project number: PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2019-1039
Contract no.: TE 51/28.08.2020
Funding body: Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI)
Budget: 431.900 RON
Period: 2020-2022
Research team / Echipa de cercetare
Andreea Niță – Principal investigator coordinator
Laurentiu Rozylowicz – Senior researcher
Mihai Răzvan Niță – Researcher
Athanasios Alexandru Gavilidis – Post-doctoral researcher
Constantina Alina Hossu – Post-doctoral researcher
Cristina Mitincu – Ph.D. student
Aim / Scop
The goal of the project is to develop a novel framework for increasing the effectiveness and accuracy of the Environmental Impact Assessment process by exploring the interplay between actors and providing practical solutions for a proper collaboration for sustainable development.
Specific objectives / Obiective
– to investigate the EIA studies quality and identify the roles of EIA actors within every stage of the procedure to positively influence the EIA outcome;
– to identify the main benefits, issues and common conflicts of the EIA procedure at national and international level;
– to identify the predictors of successful and participatory EIA, by analyzing the efficiency, constraints, and hierarchy of involved actors;
– to evaluate the fragmentation and connectedness of EIA networks, by identifying critical network hubs and opportunities to strengthen connections, using state-of-the-art multilevel models for cross-sectional EIA networks.
– to assess strategic networking opportunities, predict alternative network scenarios, fortify the linkages between decision-makers, practitioners, and stakeholders at international, national, and local levels.
Main results / Rezultate
Articles / Articole
Gavrilidis A.A., Nita A, Rozylowicz L. (2022) Past local industrial disasters and the involvement of NGOs stimulate public participation in transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment, Journal of Environmental Management, IF – 8.910
Nita A., Hossu C.A., Mitincu C.G., Iojă I.C. (2022) A review of the quality of environmental impact statements with a focus on urban projects from Romania, Ecological Informatics, 101723, IF – 3.142
Patru-Stupariu I., Nita A. (2022) Impacts of the European Landscape Convention on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. Landscape Ecology, 37, 1211-1225, IF – 3.848
Nita A., Fineran S., Rozylowicz L. (2022) Researchers’ perspective on the main strengths and weaknesses of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 92, 106690, IF – 6.122
Urziceanu M., Anastasiu P., Rozylowicz L., Sesan T. (2021) Local-scale impact of wind energy farms on rare, endemic, and threatened plant species. PeerJ 9, e11390, IF – 3.06
Nita A., Rozylowicz L. (2020) Dynamics of the international environmental treaties – perspectives for future cooperation. Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, Pages: 549-556, DOI: 10.1109/ASONAM49781.2020.9381333 – BDI
Mitincu C.G, Niță M-R, Hossu C.A, Iojă I.C, Nita A (under review) Stakeholders’ involvement in the planning of Nature-based Solutions. A network analysis approach. Environmental Science and Policy, IF – 5.581
Nita M.R., Mitincu CG., Nita A. (under review) A river runs through it? Exploring the contestation of Environmental Impact Assessment procedures for small hydropower projects. Energy Research and Social Science, IF – 6.834
Book chapters / Capitole cărți
Nita A., Rozylowicz L.(2022) A Network-Based Approach to Understanding International Cooperation in Environmental Protection. In: Özyer T. (ed) Social Media Analysis for Event Detection. Lecture Notes in Social Networks. Springer, Cham
Nita A., Treur J., Rozylowicz L. (2021) Integrating Multilevel Adaptive Models to Develop Systematic, Transparent, and Participatory EIA Practice. In: Silhavy R., Silhavy P., Prokopova Z. (eds) Data Science and Intelligent Systems. CoMeSySo 2021. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 231. Springer, Cham
Conferences / Conferințe
Nita, A., Fineran, S., 2022. An institutional grammar tool in EIA policies analysis. IAIA (May 2022), Vancouver Canada – Conference. Hybrid event. Oral Presentation
Gavrilidis, A.A, Nita A.A., Rozylowicz, L. 2022. EIA awareness among the public: indicator of society’s concerns towards sustainability. – Sustainability Assessment − From concepts to methodical implementation, S08 – Sustainability Assessment − From concepts to methodical implementation. Dresden Nexus Conference, 23-25 May, Online event
Nita A, Rozylowicz L., 2022. Public awareness and engagement in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedure during COVID-19 pandemic. Re-Visioning Geography for Sustainability in the post-COVID Era Annual Eurogeo Conference 2022. Lesvos. Greece. 05-07 May.
Mitincu, C.G., Iojă, I.C., Hossu, C.A., Nita, A., 2021. Enhancing the quality of EIA reports: A focus on urban projects from Romania. The 2nd International Conference: Geographical Sciences and Future of Earth. 12-13 November 2021. Bucharest. Romania. Virtual event. Oral presentation.
Nita, A., Treur, J., Rozylowicz, L. 2021. Integrating Multilevel Adaptive Models to develop systematic, transparent, and participatory EIA practice. CoMeSySo 2021 – 5th Computational Methods in Systems and Software 2021, October 13, 2021 – October 15, 2021. Virtual event – Online presentation.
Mitincu, C.G., Iojă, I.C., Nita, A, Hossu, C.A., 2021. Stakeholders’ engagement on nature-based solutions: Insights from Romania. The 9th World Sustainability Forum – WSF2021. 13-15 September 2021. Basel. Switzerland. Virtual event. Poster presentation.
Mitincu, C.G., Niță, M.R., Nita, A., 2021. River water run deep – collaboration and conflicts in the EIA procedure for small hydropower projects. International Conference „Present Environment and Sustainable Development”. XVI-th edition. 18-19 June 2021. Iași. Romania. Virtual event. Oral presentation.
Nita, A., Rozylowicz, L., Fineran, S., 2021. Researchers’ perspective on main benefits and issues of EIA procedure. IAIA21 Smartening Impact Assessment in Challenging Times.18-21 May 2021 – Virtual event, Oral presentation.
Hossu, C.A., Mitincu, C.G., Nita, A., 2021. Assessing the quality of Romania’s environmental impact assessment reports. Trends of impact assessment in developing countries. IAIA21 Smartening Impact Assessment in Challenging Times. 18-21 May 2021 – Virtual event, Oral presentation.
Gavrilidis, A.A, Nita A.A., 2021. Hidden links between Covid19 global pandemic and the Impact Assessment. Public participation in the Digital Age: Are we hearing you? IAIA21 Smartening Impact Assessment in Challenging Times.18-21 May 2021 – Virtual event – Oral presentation.
Nita, A., Rozylowicz, L. 2021. Exploring network approaches to highlight trends and perspectives of international cooperation for the environment. The 3rd North American Social Networks Conference (NASN). January 25-27 2021. Virtual event – Oral presentation.
Nita A., Rozylowicz L. (2020) Dynamics of the international environmental treaties – perspectives for future cooperation. 2020 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM), 7-10 December, The Hague, Netherlands (virtual)
Mitincu C.G., Hossu. A., Gavrilidis A., Nita M.R., Nita A.(2020) Benefits and constraints of joint decision making in Romania. From public participation to collaborative Environmental Impact Assessment. The 2nd International Conference on “Re-shaping Territories, Environment and Societies: New Challenges for Geography” 20 – 21 November, Bucharest, Romania
Gavrilidis A.A., Mirea A., Niță A., Motoiu G.A., Magdici M. (2020) Assessing the media portrayal of high-profile investments in relation with the Environmental Impact Assessment procedure, The 2nd International Conference on “Re-shaping Territories, Environment and Societies: New Challenges for Geography” 20 – 21 November, Bucharest, Romania
Mitincu C.G., Iojă I.C., Hossu C.A., Artmann M., Niță A., Niță M.R., (2020) Content analysis as a tool for evaluating the sustainability of environmental permits, The 8th European Environmental Evaluators Network Forum (EEEN2020) Environmental Evaluation Supporting the Implementation of SDGs and Transformative Policymaking, 4-5 November, Finnish Environment Institute, Online
Nita. A., Hossu A.C., Mitincu C.G., Gavrilidis A.A., Niță M.R.(2020) Multilateral agreements cooperation to minimize environmental impact(poster presentation). ELI/IALE Conference, 6-8 September, Bucharest, Romania
Other
Video Brief
Policy brief
Nita A., Hossu A.C., Mitincu C.G., Ioja I.C. (2022) Îmbunătățirea calității rapoartelor privind Evaluarea Impactului asupra Mediului. Rapoartele CCMESI 2
Ghid EIM/ EIA guide
Nita A., Hossu A.C., Mitincu C.G., Gavrilidis A.A., Niță M.R., Rozylowicz L.(2022). Beneficiile și constrângerile luării deciziilor de comun acord în România. De la participarea publicului la procedura colaborativă de Evaluare a Impactului asupra Mediului (Ghid).
Workshop
Workshop cu factorii interesati si echipa proiectului pentru prezentarea rezultatelor și diseminarea bunelor practici – 15 participanti – 31 August 2022, Universitatea din București, CCMESI, România
Reports / Rapoarte