A process-based evaluation framework for environmental impacts of policy making

Policy making is a highly interactive process with environmental systems. Evaluation of policy's potential environmental impacts has been regarded as an efficient precautionary measure to avoid unexpected losses and environmental risks. One of the greatest challenges is how to streamline the policy-making process through an integrated evaluation approach. This paper formulated a process-based framework for environmental impact assessment of policy making (PB-EIA), by integrating policy problem identification, environmental impact assessment, and policy cost-effectiveness evaluation. Using China's wastewater resource utilization (WWRU) policy as a case study, the institutional, technological, and economic constraints or limitations related to wastewater resource utilization were identified, and the potential environmental impacts of policy implementation on energy consumption and carbon emissions were evaluated. The expected ecological and environmental benefits of the WWRU policy were supposed to be significant, and the cost of recycled water was relatively low compared with other unconventional water resources in China. Furthermore, significant variations in the environmental impacts and policy effectiveness were found across different sectors and regions. According to the evaluation results, some recommendations for supporting policy improvements and follow-up policy implementations were proposed. The specific technical procedures and application of PB-EIA were also discussed. This study demonstrates that the process-based framework can effectively incorporate environmental considerations into policy-making processes and promote sustainable development.