Evaluating the quality of wetland impact assessment reports for coal mines in Mpumalanga

Abstract

The wetlands are one of the most threatened ecosystems globally and locally, due to continuous anthropogenic activities such as mining, urbanisation, agriculture and industrial developments. With Mpumalanga having the majority of coal mining operations in South Africa, the wetlands in this area face a substantial risk of encroachments leading to loss of their ecological health, benefits, and integrity. The National Water Act (Act 36 of 1998) makes provision for competent authorities to authorise the use of water resources, requiring the need to undertake wetland impact assessments in support of water use license applications. The Wetland Impact Assessment (WIA) is considered a specialist study which allows for competent authorities to make informed decisions on the authorisation of water use, however, the quality of WIA reports has been questioned by scholars in recent times. The aim of this research was to evaluate the report quality of Wetland Impact Assessments undertaken for coal mines in Mpumalanga. The evaluation sample consisted of n=15 wetland assessment reports which were evaluated against a tailored review package. The results showed excellent work done in certain review areas, but also inadequacies in other review areas. The foundational review areas performed very well, this included the introduction of project and purpose of the report, baseline description of the study area, and report referencing. Other areas showed satisfactory results where there was some omission of information yet not significant and this includes; the specialist expertise discussion, legislative framework and the adequacy of information review areas. Even though there are well performing areas, it was noted that other review areas were rated unsatisfactory, and these include; inclusion of a detailed impact assessment (mainly impacts associated with the preconstruction phase of a development), and the determination of wetland buffer zone. In addition, the methodology, discussion of results, conclusions, and recommendation review areas showed moderate quality scores. To overcome the outlined inadequacies, it is recommended that a checklist outlining all the requirements of a wetland report be developed to support the existing legislative report requirements. The list will include legislative requirements of the report, detailed impact assessment with inclusion of significance of impact before and after mitigation, provision of buffer maps as per the guidelines, discussion of rehabilitation measures, offset strategy requirements where wetlands are likely to be destroyed and detailed monitoring plans. Through implementation of the outlined recommendations, it is believed competent authorities will be able to make informed decisions before the issuance of authorisations to water users and ensure the protection of wetland ecosystems.