Environmental Impact Assessment Review 30 (2010) 357–362

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Environmental Impact Assessment Review

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / e i a r

Ecological compensation and Environmental Impact Assessment in Spain

Ana Villarroya ⁎, Jordi Puig
Department of Zoology and Ecology, University of Navarra, Pamplona (Navarra), Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: To achieve meaningful sustainable development, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) should avoid the
Received 18 June 2009 net losses in the environment resource base. But EIA practice does not always avoid the losses caused by the
Received in revised form 27 October 2009 implementation of the projects under EIA regulation. Some environmental impacts are, simply, admitted,
Accepted 11 November 2009
even without enforcing any form of compensation. When applied, compensation is sometimes just a
Available online 1 December 2009
monetary payment to offset the environmental loss.
Keywords:
This paper looks for evidence on the role that compensation is given at present in EIA practice in Spain, and
EIA for some of its conceptual and regulatory roots. Specifically, it explores how compensation is addressed in
Sustainability 1302 records of decision (RODs) on those projects subject to the Spanish EIA regulation published during the
Records of decision years 2006 and 2007, to know how far Spain is from preserving the environmental resource base managed
through this particular aspect of EIA practice.
As a result, it is concluded that the practice of ecological compensation in EIA in Spain is much lower than it
could be expected in a theoretical sustainability context committed to avoid net losses in the environment
resource base, mainly due to an EIA practice focused on on-site mitigation that allows these net losses.
© 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction As a result, the sustainability of landscapes is not ensured just because

The interest in effective means of protecting environmental values is
growing wherever human developments increase environmental
degradation. Land use changes such as urbanization or road develop-
ment, for example, usually reduce the value of the landscapes and
habitats they occupy, by altering some of the functions of these
environmental assets (Hueting, 1974 in Kuiper, 1997). All this happens
even as the new developments are implemented, under the control of
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), intended “to promote devel-
opment that is sustainable and optimizes resource use and management
opportunities” (IAIA and Institute of Environmental Assessment of UK,
1999).
Most of the projects under EIA regulation result eventually in an on-
site net depletion of the natural resource base, even after all the possible
mitigating measures are implemented. The impacts of new roads, dams,
railways or urban developments cannot be completely reversed on-site.
They may be accepted by decision makers, when EIA practice is
understood so that it should reduce the environmental disbenefits of
projects and render them more sustainable (Wood, 2003). This
prevalent understanding of EIA may be inevitable, even the only option
at hand, in certain EIA decision-making contexts, countries or periods.
⁎ Corresponding author. Department of Zoology and Ecology, Science Faculty,
University of Navarra, c/ Irunlarrea 1, 31008 Pamplona (Navarra) Spain. Tel.: + 34
948425600 6281.
E-mail addresses: avillarroya@alumni.unav.es (A. Villarroya), jpbaguer@unav.es
(J. Puig).
the projects implemented in them undergo thorough EIA processes.
Should EIA be understood or carried out differently?
Compensation has been put forward in EIA practice as a tool to keep
whole the natural value of landscapes. It may not be sufficient, a
straightforward way of delivering sustainable development. But, it is
increasingly perceived as necessary to attain sustainability. The role of
compensation in EIA is a subject for debate (Section 2). Yet, improved
levels of sustainability could be achieved through the improvement of
compensation in EIA practice.
This paper looks for evidence on the role that compensation is given
at present in EIA practice in Spain, and for some of its conceptual and
regulatory roots. Specifically, it explores how compensation is
addressed in the records of decision (ROD) produced by EIA practice,
and how far Spain is from preserving the environmental resource base
managed through this particular aspect of EIA practice. The answer to
these questions may cast light on the degree of sustainability
attributable to each development project implemented under EIA
regulation, and on the sustainability of the habitats and landscapes in
the long run.
Section 2 overviews briefly the role of compensation in EIA.
Section 3 addresses how compensation is regulated in Spain. In
Section 4, 1302 records of decision (RODs) publicized during the years
2006 and 2007 on those projects subject to the Spanish EIA regulation
are analyzed, regarding some particular aspects of compensation
practice. Finally (Section 5) conclusions are drawn on how compen-
sation practice is working in Spain at present within EIA frameworks,
and suggestions are made for the future.

0195-9255/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.eiar.2009.11.001
358 A. Villarroya, J. Puig / Environmental Impact Assessment Review 30 (2010) 357–362
2. The role of compensation practice in EIA
Environmental compensation has been put forward as a tool to
prevent the net loss of environmental values within EIA frameworks.
Since the 1970s, many countries have given a growing role to
environmental compensation in decision-making processes on land
use (i.e. Rundcrantz and Skärbäck, 2003; Wilding and Raemaekers,
2000a,b). It has been linked to the concept of natural capital, and
proposed as a means to achieve sustainability. But it remains discussed
to what extent the erosion of environmental values may possibly be
restored or reversed by environmental compensation (Cowell, 1997).
Moreover, the very meanings of “natural capital” and “environmental
compensation”, and their efficiency in protecting environmental values
or the environmental resource base, are still open to discussion, either
within EIA procedures (Hayes and Morrison-Saunders, 2007) or in other
decision-making contexts. What is the meaning of “environmental”
compensation? To what extent is it possible to distinguish “natural”
values from the “human-made” or cultural ones in each environment? Is
it “natural capital” a good tool to take care of environmental values?
How can we maintain natural capital if environments are repositories of
plural and incommensurable values (Cowell, 1997)?
Some clarifying conceptualizations on how to understand and make
good use of compensation practices in EIA contexts have been developed.
For instance, it has been argued that sound compensation practice should
adhere to the mitigation sequence of avoid, minimize, rectify, reduce and
then utilize offsets or compensation as a last resort, assuming that the
acceptability and manageability of impacts have to be considered before
offsets are brought into the equation. Complementarily, a hierarchy of
approaches has been identified within the concept of compensation
itself, where the preferred order of methods would be restoration,
creation, enhancement and preservation. Even the net environmental
gain, through compensation, of every implemented project has been put
forward as a goal for EIA practice. Multiple other issues involved in
compensation practice might be brought to discussion, as the concept of
“like for like” compensation, the difficulties in the valuation of lost
biodiversity, the time lags between project impact and offset deliverance,
and the gap between the real and intended environmental outcomes
resulting from practice, among others (Hayes and Morrison-Saunders,
2007). The scope for potential research in compensation is very broad.
The avoidance of net losses in the environment resource base seems
inescapable to achieve meaningful sustainability in EIA contexts.
Environmental compensation should offset the environmental impact
of human developments by avoiding a net loss in the environment
resource base, and not by paying for its depletion. We use the term
“ecological compensation” rather than “environmental compensation”
to stress this option, as the latter is used sometimes to refer to situations
when the depletion of the environment resource base has been
compensated through payments. Ecological compensation has been
defined as the substitution of ecological functions or qualities that are
impaired by development (Cuperus et al., 1996 in Cuperus et al., 1999).
By using this term we intend to reject the idea that “natural capital” can
be paid for in compensation for its loss, or be readily substituted by
“human-made capital” during a sustainable EIA practice.
As Rundcrantz and Skärbäck (2003) have stated, the term ‘ecological
compensation’ is not used in the same way in all countries. In this paper,
ecological compensation will be understood as the set of measures
carried out to substitute the habitats, ecological values and functions that
remain definitively damaged or lost, even after the measures to reverse
the damage caused by a given infrastructure have been implemented.
Compensation may range from the ecological improvement of damaged
areas to the creation of entirely new habitats, generally the same as or at
least similar to the lost ones. Following Cuperus et al. (2002), we
distinguish between mitigation (those measures minimizing, rectifying
and reducing adverse impacts, and so tied to the infrastructure causing
them) and compensation (the replacement of natural habitat that takes
place generally elsewhere) as separate terms.
3. A review on the Spanish regulation regarding compensation
Regulation is an important formal step to integrate and attain
ecological compensation in the decision-making process of projects
with environmental side effects. In the European Union, compensation
measures have their regulatory basis mainly in three Directives: the
Environmental Impact Assessment Directive 85/337/EEC and 97/11/EC
(European Union, 1985 and 1997), the Birds Directive, 79/409/EEC
(European Union, 1979) and the Habitats Directive, 92/43/EEC (European
Union, 1992) (Rundcrantz and Skärbäck, 2003). Special pre-eminence is
given in the EU to the integrity of the Natura 2000 network, in order to
preserve its overall coherence as a network of protected land.
The EU Member States, such as Spain, have to comply with the EU
Directives in their own national regulations, and they retain the right to
lay down stricter rules regarding scope and procedure when assessing
environmental effects. In Spain, two main regulatory levels can be
found: national regulation, which has a general scope and applies to the
whole of the national territory, and “autonomous” regulation, which
applies to just one of the 17 “autonomous regions” into which the
country is divided, and usually includes rules complementary to the
national ones, which are frequently stricter.
Spanish national regulations do comply with the EU Directives. But,
regarding compensation, they do not go much further. No reference can
be found, for example, on how to define the extent of the areas where
compensation should be applied, or the detailed circumstances under
which compensation measures should be carried out. Nothing concrete
is said on how to integrate environmental compensation in the decision-
making processes, or on how to monitor compensation work and its
efficiency, etc.
The term “compensation” does appear in regulations derived from
EU Directives on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), nature
conservation and other similar fields. EIA regulation establishes that
the Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) must include the preven-
tion, mitigation and/or compensation measures to be carried out when a
project is finally implemented (Ministerio de Obras Públicas y
Urbanismo, 1988; Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, 2008). But not even
a definition for “compensation” is provided in any of these laws.
The autonomous regulation, on the other hand, has to comply with the
national one. But in some of the regions, stricter regulations can be found.
They are in force only in the autonomous region that promulgates each
regulation. Some of the 17 so-called “autonomous regions” in Spain have
passed regulatory provisions to foster the practice of compensation. Law
7/2007 in the autonomous region of Andalucía (Comunidad Autónoma de
Andalucía, 2007), i.e., empowers the competent authority to enforce
compensation when the damage caused to the natural values cannot be
reversed in the affected place. It also allows the developer to pay a fine,
which will be used for carrying out compensating measures. In the region
of Aragón, Order of 4th April 2006 establishes the obligation to implement
measures to compensate for environmental damage in potential wind
farm areas that are ecologically sensitive. Law 11/2006 in the Balearic
Islands (Comunidad Autónoma de las Illes Balears, 2006) forces
developers to carry out ecological compensation, both in protected and
in non-protected areas. Autonomous law in the region of Extremadura
establishes the duty to compensate for measures taken to prevent bird
nesting on power line infrastructures (Consejería de Economía y Trabajo
de Extremadura, 2004). In the autonomous region of Navarra a reduction
in forested land must be compensated by a reforestation area equivalent
to the one lost (Comunidad Foral de Navarra, 1990).
Other autonomous laws indicate the contents on compensation
measures that must be specified in the EIS, such as maps (Departamento
de Ordenación del Territorio y Medio Ambiente del País Vasco, 2003), or
the budget and implementation schedule to be followed (Presidència de
la Generalitat de Catalunya, 1988; Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid,
2002). The design of compensation measures in the Environmental
Statement in the region of Aragón (Comunidad Autónoma de Aragón,
2006) must include the indicators to monitor their implementation and
 A. Villarroya, J. Puig / Environmental Impact Assessment Review 30 (2010) 357–362
effectiveness. Decree 93/2006 in Navarra (Comunidad Foral de Navarra,
2006) enforces the Environmental Statement to specify the exact
amount of the deposit to be paid by the developer to provide for the
implementation of the compensatory measures to be carried out in the
project.
4. A review of the public EIA records of decisions (RODs) in Spain
The regulatory framework is important or even necessary to
promote compensation practices, but it does not give an account of
their actual implementation. The understanding of the meaning and
efficiency of the letter of regulation requires of data on its implemen-
tation. Of the multiple questions that could be inquired regarding
compensation in EIA, the focus in this paper is on whether compensation
is addressed in EIA RODs in Spain every time it should be to prevent a net
loss in the environment resource base. To answer this question 1302
records of decision (RODs) from the EIA procedure of projects ranging
from January 1st 2006 to December 31st 2007 have been studied.
A ROD is the publicly available document where the approving
agency presents the main factors that were contemplated to reach the
final decision on every project, including the practical means to avoid or
minimize environmental harm. The RODs in Spain contain an account of
the EISs prepared during the EIA procedure. As the document justifying
to the public the final resolution adopted on project implementation, it
reflects the priorities set down by each environmental authority, and
provides a solid indication of the role that they give to compensation.
A total of 1088 of the RODs selected belong to “nonlinear” projects
or infrastructures (like farms, quarries or dams), 27 to rail infra-
structures, and 187 to roads. The RODs of six autonomous regions
have had to be excluded from the review (Andalucía, Baleares, Ceuta,
Madrid, Melilla and Valencia), because it was not possible to access
the information required to conduct the study.
The 1302 RODs belong to a variety of project types. None of the 2006
and 2007 RODs concerning “linear projects” (roads or railways) was left
out of the sample. The impossibility to reverse on-site the environmental
impacts of roads and railways built on environmentally valuable land is
self-evident. This is the main reason why these projects have been given
separated attention. Noise, habitat loss and habitat fragmentation have
been frequently quoted as some of the most important road and railway
environmental impacts (Forman and Alexander, 1998; Forman et al.,
2003). They may be minimized at best, but never completely avoided. As
a consequence, sustainable EIA practice regarding the approval of any of
these projects should make provisions for compensation practice, to
avoid a net loss in the environmental resource base. Habitat loss may be
compensated by transforming an off-site degraded area into a habitat
comparable to the lost one. Fragmentation, as any other functional
aspect of habitats, is more difficult to tackle with seemingly, and it may
demand not only off-site but also “out-of-kind” compensation (Rund-
Fig. 1. Results of the review of the RODs. 22% of the RODs (290 out of 1302) mention
but not describe compensation measures, while an extra 9% more (117 out of 1302)
describe them.
359
Fig. 2. Results of the review of railway project RODs. No RODs with specific compensation
measures were found for railway infrastructure projects, while 26% (7 out of a total 27) of
these records mention environmental compensation.
crantz and Skärbäck, 2003). In most countries road projects have become
main projects where ecological compensation is applied (i.e. Cuperus
et al., 1999; Rundcrantz, 2006).
As to the nonlinear project types, a maximum of 10 projects (five
per year, when possible) were selected randomly for each kind of
project in each region (e.g. only ten farm projects, five from 2006 and
five from 2007, were revised in the autonomous region of Madrid).
Once the 1302 RODs had been selected, a search for any references or
terms related to environmental compensation was conducted. As a
result, the project RODs were classified into three categories, as
regards compensation practices:
- No compensation measures (“No CM” category): including those
projects whose RODs do not even mention environmental
compensation.
- Unspecified compensation measures (“Unspecified CM” category):
including those projects whose RODs do mention compensation
measures, but do not describe them at all.
- Specific compensation measures (“Specific CM” category): including
those projects whose RODs specify and describe the compensation
measures to be carried out as part of the project implementation.
4.1. Main results and discussion
It was found that only 407 out of the 1302 RODs reviewed (31%)
mention environmental compensation, and only 117 of these (9% of
the total) describe the compensatory measures to be carried out
(Fig. 1). This ratio is maintained within the subgroup of nonlinear
projects. The results for linear infrastructures can be seen in Figs. 2
and 3. The importance of all these data grows when compared with
mitigation practice data: almost 100% of the RODs make provisions for
Fig. 3. Results of the review of road projects RODs. 28% of reviewed RODs (52 out of 187)
just mention environmental compensation, while an extra 13% more (24 out of 187) also
describe compensation measures (adding up to a total of 76 records out of 187, a 41% of the
total RODs).

Table 1
Compensation measures for road projects as described in the reviewed RODs.
Competent authority
Central Government
Cantabria autonomous region
Castilla y León
autonomous region
Castilla la Mancha
autonomous region
Extremadura autonomous region
Navarra autonomous region
Roads
A-11 motorway, Aranda del Duero west bypass — Valladolid
A-66 motorway, Benavente — Zamora
A-32 motorway, Linares — Albacete
A-8 motorway, Unquera — Llanes
N-232 road, Agoncillo — Logroño
N-435 bypass, Beas — Trigueros
N-I bypass, M-40 — Molar
Pisueña river lane
CL-600 road to Boecillo
A-5 (N-V) — A-4 (N-IV) main road
CM-3216 road, Alcaraz— Vianos
Alovera–Azuqueca road
A-45 road, access to Beg-Nerpio
Guadalajara — A-3 main road
CM-5051 road, Nombela — Pelahustán
CM-2023 road, Priego-Albendea — Salmeroncillos
CU-9161 road, CM-2106 junction — Puerto del Cubillo
CM-4106 road, Sevilleja de la Jara — Anchuras
Puertollano bypass
EX-A I motorway, Plasencia — Portugal
EX-A3 motorway, Zafra — Jerez
N-121-A road, Bera de Bidasoa — Endarlatsa
NA-134 road, Lodosa bypass
NA-178 road, Puerto de Iso
Natural feature to provide compensation for
— Woodland and shrubland
— Mediterranean temporary ponds habitat
(Habitat Type no. 3170, Council Directive 92/43/EEC)
— ES0000207 SPA (Special Protection Area)
— Montagu's harrier (Circus pygargus)
— ES1200034 “Purón river” SCI (Site of Community Interest)
— “Sierra plana de la Borbolla” SCI
— “Ribadesella-Tina Mayor” SCI, and ES0000319 SPA
(Special Protection Area)
— Riverbank
— Green corridor
— SCI ES3110001 and ES3110003 vegetation
— Riverside areas
— Woodland and shrubland
— ES4250009 SCI
— Streams
— Iberian lynx (Lynx pardina)
— ES0000167 SPA
— Riverbanks and riparian vegetation
— Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni)
— ‘Vulnerable’ and ‘particular attention’ bird species,
— Woodland and shrubland
— Riverbanks, riparian forest
— Public interest Holm Oak (Quercus ilex) forest
— Avifauna
— Habitat loss
— Woodland and shrubland
— Prospective SCI (ES4230014) and ES0000162 SPA
— SPA and SCI ES4250013 and ES4220003,
and critical area for Black Stork (Ciconia nigra)
— Forest area (Habitat Type no. 9340 Quercus ilex and
Quercus rotundifolia forests, Council Directive 92/43/EEC)
— Woodland and shrubland
— Woodland and shrubland. Riverbanks.
— SCI ES2200014
— Woodland and shrubland (pine reforestation)
— Vegetation
360
Compensation measures in the ROD
— Replacement of woodland and shrubland removed by the road construction
— Replacement of an area equivalent to 100% of the damaged Mediterranean
temporary ponds habitat area
— Replacement of an extension equivalent to 50% of the SPA damaged area.
— Payments to keep temporarily unharvested some selected Montagu's harrier
breeding areas of cereal crops.
— Improvement of a 5 km-long stretch of riparian vegetation alongside Purón river.
— Promote a fern restoration programme in “Sierra Plana de la Borbolla” SCI.
— Develop an exotic species eradication programme, focused
mainly in Eucalyptus globulus.
— Riverbank improvement, from the river crossing point by the road, to the
confluence with the Ebro river.
— Improvement of the nearby green corridor already built on a former railway.
A. Villarroya, J. Puig / Environmental Impact Assessment Review 30 (2010) 357–362
Removal of abandoned road stretches, and revegetation.
— Vegetation replacement. The new planted area has to have an extension
equivalent to at least four times that of the affected SCI area.
— Restoration of degraded riverside areas. Shutdown of a nearby scrapyard, and
of several unauthorized dump areas.
— Woodland and shrubland replacement and handover of an area equal
to twice the piece of land expropriated from the “Arroyadas” estate,
crossed by the new road. Apply forest management techniques to
minimize the induced fire risk alongside the road.
— Rare vegetation replacement. The newly planted area has to have an
extension equal to at least three times the damaged SCI area.
— Riparian vegetation improvement alongside twice the length of the damaged
stream stretch.
— Rabbit habitat improvement (main prey species to Iberian lynx)
— Replacement of an area of riparian forest equivalent to the lost one.
— Riverbank cleaning. Riparian vegetation improvement on the riversides close
to the damaged area.
— Restoration of damaged Lesser Kestrel nests, and construction of new ones.
— Leguminous plantations to compensate for the steppe avifauna habitat alteration.
— Vegetation replacement. The newly planted shrubland and woodland has to
have an extension equivalent to four times that of the damaged area.
— Riparian forest restoration of an area alongside the river twice as long as the
damaged riverbank area.
— Restoration and cleaning of the Holm Oak public interest forest.
Power line impact mitigation measures for avifauna.
— Dump site reclamation, by planting the predominant oak and juniper species
corresponding to the habitat.
— Reforestation. The planted forest has to have an extension equivalent to at least
twice the area occupied by the project.
— Revegetation. The planted area has to have an extension equivalent to
at least three times the total SCI and SPA damaged areas.
— Dump site reclamation (including planting of native vegetation; the
environmental statement sets the species to be used).
— Reforestation of an area at least twice as large as the damaged
non-protected forest area.
— Revegetation. The planted area has to have an extension equivalent to
at least three times the damaged area. Native species have to be used.
— Ponds have to be created alongside the road, mainly near wildlife crossings.
— Riverbank reforestation with native species of crossing streams.
— Old dump and extractive areas reclamation.
— Plantation of ten native trees per each one that has to be cut down.
— Plantation of ten native trees per each one that has to be cut down.
— Substitution of non-native plantations by Alnus glutinosa forests.
— Construction of an upstream fish passage.
— Spawning area creation.
— Plantation of three coniferous trees per cut-down tree
— Reforestation
 A. Villarroya, J. Puig / Environmental Impact Assessment Review 30 (2010) 357–362
mitigation. Data from road and railway RODs, which are projects with
self-evident and unavoidable residual impacts, stress that the lack of
reference to compensation practice in these RODs is not due to a
sustainable implementation of these projects, but to an understanding
of EIA that allows a net loss of the environment resource base.
The proportion of projects belonging to each of the three categories
above mentioned (‘No CM’, ‘Unspecified CM’, and ‘Specific CM’) varies
from one autonomous region to another. Unexpectedly, this variation is
not always in keeping with the degree of development of the regulatory
framework regarding compensation practice in every region. Law 6/
2002 in the autonomous region of Canarias (Comunidad Autónoma de
Canarias, 2002) is a demanding one as compared to other regulations.
But only one of the ten RODs reviewed for this region mentions
environmental compensation, and it does not describe the specific
measures to be implemented. This does not seem a demanding
approach to compensation practice, particularly if we remember that
alternatively almost 100% of the RODs make provisions for mitigation.
It has been noticed also that there is no homogeneity or
standardization in the way environmental compensation is dealt with
in the RODs. Given a year, type of project and region, some RODs have
been found that describe compensation measures specifically, while
others belonging to the same year, type of project and region and that
should seemingly make provisions for compensation, for no apparent
reason, do not even mention this practice.
4.2. Compensation measures in road projects
Compensation practices regarding road projects were studied
intentionally in more detail to identify future areas of research on
compensation within EIA. Specifically, the 24 RODs on road projects
describing to any extent the compensation measures to be imple-
mented were reviewed. The specific measures are shown in Table 1, as
they appear in the RODs. This table also indicates the kind of natural
features to provide compensation for, as specified in each ROD.
An initial review of the cases summarized in the table shows that
the terms “compensatory” and “compensation” are used occasionally
in the RODs in a confusing way, even to refer to measures that should
rather be labelled as “mitigating” or “mitigation”.
Compensation measures are described in the RODs quite hetero-
geneously. Their description varies in detail from one ROD to another.
These descriptions do not seem to follow any common pattern in their
design. For example, in some projects the compensatory measure
“reforestation” appears only mentioned as ‘compensatory reforesta-
tion’, with no further specification (see Table 1, Navarra NA-178 road).
Other RODs specify the proportion of the area to be reforested and the
species to be used (see Table 1, Castilla la Mancha CM-4106 road).
The way compensation is implemented varies from one region to
the other, and also within the same region (e.g. Table 1 Castilla la
Mancha, Alovera–Azuqueca road and CU-9161 road: they compensate
the damage to an SPA by reforesting in different proportions). As a
result, similar impacts may be compensated to different degrees.
5. Conclusions and proposals
The practice of ecological compensation in EIA in Spain is much
lower than it could be expected in a theoretical sustainability context
committed to avoid net losses in the environment resource base. Less
than one-third of the 1302 EIA RODs reviewed in this paper make
some reference to compensation measures, while almost 100% make
provisions for mitigation. These proportions are maintained within
the subset of road and railway projects, indicating that the absence of
compensation provisions in the RODs reviewed is not due to a
sustainable implementation of the approved projects, but to an EIA
practice that allows a net loss in the environment resource base. This
loss takes place both in protected areas where EIA fails to provide
mandatory ecological compensation (as demanded by EU and
361
national regulations), and in other areas where compensation is
optional from a regulatory point of view (so revealing potential
deficiencies in the underlying policy towards natural environments).
To make EIA in Spain a better tool towards sustainability such
practice should change, making of compensation a necessary (even
though it is not sufficient) condition to be integrated within every
project approved through any EIA procedure generating impacts that
cannot be completely reversed on-site. If this change should be
promoted through changes in the Spanish and EU EIA regulations and
policies, is an interesting subject for debate and further research.
The practice of ecological compensation in EIA in Spain is not
registered in the RODs as a consistent aspect of EIA decision making.
The term “compensation” is used sometimes to refer to mitigation
measures. On occasion, the measures are described more as sugges-
tions than as mandatory conditions attached to the project approval
decision. The description of the compensation measures to be
implemented is rarely found in the RODs as mitigation measures
are, endangering a sound public participation in EIA procedures. The
way compensation is implemented varies from one region to the
other, and also within the same region, as similar impacts are
compensated to different degrees.
All these data suggest that the way compensation measures are
addressed in the RODs is not standardized. Although this seems a
secondary question compared to the low rate of compensation
practice, it demands also attention. A guidance document on how to
deal with compensation in EIA, focused on the consistent selection of
compensation measures for any project undergoing EIA could be
helpful in this context.
Acknowledgements
We want to thank Prof. Jesper Persson for comments on earlier
drafts of this paper. The corresponding author is supported by a
doctoral fellowship provided by the Department of Science, Technol-
ogy and Universities of the Government of the Autonomous region of
Aragón.
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Ana Villarroya (Department of Zoology and Ecology, University of Navarra) is developing
her PhD on Environmental Impact Assessment in the University of Navarra (Pamplona,
Spain). She got her Biology degree in 2007 (University of Navarra). She focuses her
research on environmental compensation issues, and also on roads and their effects on the
environment.
Jordi Puig (Department of Zoology and Ecology, University of Navarra) is an Associate
Professor on Environmental Impact Assessment in the University of Navarra (Pamplona,
Spain) since 1996. He got his Science degree in 1990 (University of Navarra), and his PhD at
the School of Forestry of the Polytechnic University, in Madrid (Spain). Visiting scholar in
the UC Berkeley (2002–2003) and in the University of Manchester (2004), he has been
doing research, among other topics, on roads and wildlife since 1998.