1. Introduction
This document is intended to guide dredging project managers and environmental assessment practitioners in the design and implementation of environmental monitoring and surveillance programs (EMSP) adapted to their dredging operations. In the context of the planning, approval and control of dredging projects, it provides a common approach for environmental monitoring and surveillance. This approach proposes a uniform process that seeks to obtain comparable data among the various projects, while ensuring that an EMSP conforms with the needs identified in the environmental assessment of a dredging project.
The distinction between surveillance and monitoring activities is sometimes ambiguous. With the objective of an integrated management of dredging operations in mind, this guide adopts the following definitions, inspired by a review of the different definitions found in the literature (MDDEP, 2005; Michaud, 2000; AQÉI, 1999; EC, 1998; USEPA, 1994; Fredette et al., 1990):
- Environmental surveillance: Means and mechanisms put in place in order to ensure, during the performance of authorized work, compliance with the environmental measures determined in advance, generally at the environmental study stage. A surveillance program includes mitigation or offsetting, as well as the conditions, commitments and requirements stipulated by government or ministerial authorizations and by the relevant legislation and regulations.
- Environmental monitoring: Scientific approach that allows temporal and spatial monitoring of the evolution of the components of the natural and human environments affected by the performance of the project. The goal of monitoring is to validate the accuracy of the assessment and forecast of the apprehended impacts; measure the effectiveness of mitigation measures for negative environmental impacts; and react in a timely manner to any failure of a mitigation or offsetting measure or to an unexpected environmental effect. Environmental monitoring also serves to build a knowledge base to improve future work planning.
1.1 Context of the EMSP in the Environmental Assessment Process
When dredging or sediment management work is undertaken, it is essential to ensure that the impacts on the different components of the natural and human environments are minimized and residual impacts offset. This is why environmental screening assessments are carried out. However, for all kinds of reasons, uncertainties may persist with regard to the prediction of the impacts and the effectiveness of the proposed mitigation measures. The objective of an EMSP is to circumscribe these uncertainties in the best way possible, given that they sometimes arouse concern on the part of the authorities and the public. If applicable, the EMSP will propose corrective actions to be applied when breaches, failures or adverse effects are observed during project monitoring and surveillance. Figure 1 illustrates the context of application of an EMSP.
Box A-1 of Appendix A gives an overview of the federal and provincial legal framework governing the environmental assessment process for dredging and sediment management projects. The EMSP is an integral part of this process. Guided by the environmental assessment, it is essentially designed to validate and direct the application of the decisions made within the context of the current assessment. It provides useful information to improve the environmental assessment of similar projects. This is why it is important to plan the monitoring and surveillance activities properly. Good planning facilitates the establishment of shared activities and makes it possible to take full advantage of their complementarity. Although monitoring and surveillance activities have distinct definitions, they are developed within the framework of a single planning process.
Environmental surveillance is a requirement arising from legal obligations, because its goal is to ensure that the work complies with the authorizations issued. It validates the representations made in the environmental assessment, which relate to the compliance of the activities, anticipated impacts and mitigation measures put in place. Although there is no doubt as to the relevance of environmental monitoring, there are no clearly defined criteria to determine its scope. However, an assessment of the following factors will help the project manager determine the scope of the projected follow-up program:
- Novelty of a project: if the technology has never been used or a project of this scope has never been undertaken, monitoring brings clarity to the real impacts of this type of project.
- Environmental vulnerability: if the project could threaten a particularly sensitive component of the environment, monitoring should be required (e.g., water withdrawal, wildlife habitat, species with designated status).
- Hydrodynamic and hydrosedimentological conditions: if the project is carried out in an area involving special conditions (e.g., tidal areas, sand bar, erosion).
- Uncertainty of the analysis: if the extent of the uncertainty of the impact analysis is substantial or if forecasting the impacts is complex.
- Scope of dredging operation: if the duration, volume and area of the dredging are substantial.
- Work schedule: if the impact assessment report was written a long time before the start of the project implementation phase, it is possible that certain environmental conditions have changed in unforeseen ways.
It is essential that an EMSP be drafted and implemented by competent and rigorous specialists. The resources allocated and the funds invested will allow for the collection of reliable data and information that is useful to all stakeholders.
Michaud (2000) established the guiding principles behind the drafting of an EMSP.
An EMSP must:
- be associated with objectives to determine the extent to which mitigation will protect important elements of the ecosystem and/or assess the accuracy of the forecasts and the impacts on these elements;
- be capable of gathering information on the important elements of the ecosystem at the proposed project location (ecosystem reference state);
- be designed in such a way that the outcomes can serve to detect the possible spatial and temporal variations in the effects on the study area;
- be centered on a series of indicators of the state of the environment that will reveal whether or not the project has significant effects on important elements of the ecosystem;
- be scientifically rigorous and based on verifiable impact hypotheses;
- include precise decision points and continue until the initial hypotheses of the project’s effects have been confirmed or refuted;
- include several sampling campaigns covering a period compatible with the impact hypotheses or sufficient to allow examination of the effectiveness of mitigation;
- be based on a rigorous and predetermined statistical plan;
- include quality control and quality assurance mechanisms;
- be scalable and fairly flexible to allow insertion of new or improved monitoring techniques and to account for the outcomes of previous EMSPs;
- be manageable in terms of requirements and deadlines.
The federal and provincial legislation, regulations, guidelines and policies in force constitute the triggers of the environmental assessment process. This then leads to the carrying out of environmental studies, the scope of which is defined by the competent authorities. Following these studies, these authorities take a position on the project by issuing or not issuing authorizations. The EMSP activities are then initiated by characterization of the ecosystem reference state, i.e., its state before commencing the dredging and/or sediment management work. The monitoring and surveillance activities are performed during the work, with the monitoring activities also continuing after completion of the work. Figure 2 positions the monitoring and surveillance activities in the process of drafting a project and its environmental assessment. This figure also illustrates how the environmental monitoring and surveillance outcomes can improve the environmental performance of each phase of the project. This figure was adapted from the brief of the Comité sur le Suivi Environnemental of the Association Québécoise pour l'Évaluation des Impacts (AQÉI, 1999).
1.2 Proposed Approach
The approach described in this guide is based on the work of Michaud (2000), which synthesizes a series of notions and information necessary for the drafting and implementation of an EMSP for dredging and sediment management work.
This approach proposes that an EMSP be carried out in twelve activities grouped into four distinct phases, as illustrated in Figure 3: the drafting phase (four activities); the implementation phase (six activities); the communication phase (one activity); and the review phase (one activity). The last phase allows an iteration of the process to review or update the stages of the previous phases, if necessary.
The next three sections of the document describe in detail the activities that constitute the four phases of an EMSP. Appendix B provides additional bibliographical references that are useful to the drafting of an EMSP for dredging and sediment management projects.
