J48716 Willend EIA ResearchReport V4 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 15
Photo: Ibeno Beach, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.
Sourced from PaRayHD on Youtube
There is clearly much opportunity to learn and
help advance both EIA practice and the work
of NOSDRA - in monitoring projects that in
many cases have undergone EIA – through
engagement and potential collaboration between
the two organisations on digital skills and the
deployment of potential shared processes and
systems. Currently, NOSDRA is not a body that
is formally linked to engagement / consultation
on the EIA process and as such interactions and
the opportunity to share digital knowledge and
ambitions is not optimised. There would appear
to be much potential in linking the latter stages of
the EIA process and conditions associated with
permitting oil and gas developments with the work
that NOSDRA conducts in relation to operational
sites. This could, for example, include sharing of
knowledge and resource use of digital technologies
to better understand land use change and
common pollution challenges in this sector – which
could benefit the effectiveness of the EIA process
and have the potential to reduce the number and
scale of future spills.
NOSDRA appears to have more experience with
the use and application of remote sensing data
and imagery, which is noted by EIA experts –
see below – as an underutilised area of digital
advancement in Nigerian EIA practice. One
reason for its limited application could relate to
acceptance by FMEnv and their EIA expert panel
members of the reliability and viability of such
digital information and evidence in EIA Reports.
Further exchange and shared learning with
NOSDRA, and other FMEnv and wider Federal
Government bodies that are making use of remote
sensing and satellite data could help enable more
uptake in EIA practice. The need to understand the
role digital advances can play in the Nigerian EIA
process – whose current non-digital approaches
are well established and understood – will, like
any change, need management and establish a
clear need case to key parties, in particular the EA
Department’s officers who effectively deliver the
current EIA system.
An opportunity for such a collaborative digital EIA
activity emerged from the interview with NOSDRA
in the form of a selective pilot to retrospectively
review how digital technologies, such as satellite
imagery could have further enhanced a number of
completed EIA projects. For effective collaboration
the projects would need to link to the oil and gas
sector and the scope of such a retrospective study
would need further development to define specific
aims that are likely to prove beneficial to both the
EIA process and environmental protection and
rehabilitation activities related to the operation and
management of the country’s oil and gas sector.
Willend Associates and FothergillTC Ltd – Digitization in and around Nigerian EIA
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