BIOLOĢISKĀS DAUDZVEIDĪBAS ESOŠĀ STĀVOKĻA NOVĒRTĒJUMS IETEKMES UZ VIDI NOVĒRTĒJUMĀ (IVN) LATVIJĀ.

The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an important tool for minimizing adverse effects from project-related activities on the environment in general and biodiversity in particular. It is necessary to carry out a baseline study as part of the scoping stage of EIA. Such studies should include the collation of existing and the collection of new data from field surveys. There should be a balance between the utilization of existing secondary information and conducting new fieldwork. EIA in Latvia is performed for more than 10 years. The aims of the research is to find out how a baseline study is being carried out in Latvia and assess the quality of collected data, based on which are forecasting the potential impacts of the project. There have been investigated 55 EIA reports, which were conducted for past twelve years. The study shows that use of existing data prevails in baseline study. In cases where field studies were carried out, the most common study fields were flora and habitats, and bird species. The most significant imperfection of a baseline study is that none of the analyzed environmental impact assessments, including those made for the distant future projects, contained forecast of possible changes in current state for the period prior to the planned implementation of the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]