4.2 Checklists

Checklists serve as reminder of all possible relationships and impacts, out of which a set tailored for the specific assignment may be chosen.

It is always possible that an important local factor may be left out of the generic checklists that appear in EIA manuals. The guidelines from the ADB (various years) and the sourcebook developed by the World Bank are good examples because they stimulate investigation.

Checklists are designed to establish whether a proposed project is likely to have negative impacts on the environment. For such projects, all possible negative impacts must be assessed in detail in relation to the project's positive impacts. This is accomplished in the next steps of the EIA.

The checklists help people in key positions to become more aware of what they should be looking for when assessing a proposed project. They may also help to develop a higher degree of awareness of the environmental aspects of a project.

Checklists can be classified into descriptive and weight-scaling categories.