The survey of erroneously uninitiated EIAs (Uer) was based on
environmental and construction permits issued in 2003–2004 in the
Harju County (North Estonia), which is the most dynamically
developing region of the country. The time period 2003–2004 was
regarded as optimal: on the one hand, there had been a dramatic
increase in the number of issued permits in 2003 (see Fig. 1), on the
other hand, for the activities authorized under more recent permits
the period had been too short to manifest their impacts. According to
the official database, 451 environmental and 9694 construction permits
were issued during that period. Randomized sets with sizes 100 and
200 were selected for the further study.
The period 2005–2006 was selected for the survey of EIAs influence
on decision making (Ni). The selection was based on the assumption
that in the case of recent EIAs the availability and reliability of datawere
greater (the participants were easier to find, they remembered the
events and could find relevant data more easily). The EIAs initiated in
2007 were left out because, in all likelihood, these were not yet
completed by the time the present study started. The study included all
EIAs (altogether 198) initiated within the selected time frame.
Additionally, strategic environmental assessments (SEA) of detailed
plans, which were initiated due to the reason that planning addressed
activities with potentially significant environmental impact (90 cases),
were included.