Offset philosophies across the pond: Differences and commonalities of US and UK environmental mitigation strategies

Background/Question/Methods

In this age of instant communication, shared resources, exponential population growth, and increased global awareness, it is important to understand what steps are being taken to apply knowledge of ecological systems and services to the growing impacts from human expansion and development. ENVIRON has looked at two assessment approaches for damages to natural resources and compared differences and similarities.  Comparing these methods will give us a universal understanding of methods to value, assess, and mitigate for human impacts on natural resources ‘across the pond’.

Results/Conclusions

The European Liability Directive (ELD) and the US Natural Resources Damage Assessments (NRDA) both attempt to assess damages (“Measurable adverse change in a natural resource or measurable impairment of a natural resource service, which may occur directly or indirectly”. The evolution of the regulations today started in the US in 1980 with CERCLA, in 1989 the EXXON Valdez raised the communities awareness of damages to natural resources and was answered in 1996 with the US NRDA regulations.  In 2007 the ELD regulations were established. Service to Service (Ecological ) Valuations have been used for complimentary and compensatory valuation and is used when the service of the damaged area is ecologically equivalent to that service that will be provided by the replacement habitat.  The scope of the ELD is is focused on strict prevention and “the polluter pays” principle.  The ELD has many concepts and approaches similar to NRDA. The ELD may result in more litigation than Superfund where liability is strict, defenses narrow, and there are many restrictions on appeal.  A service-to-service pathway is the preferred approach for assessment and remedy is accomplished by restoring to a previous condition (baseline) and compensating for interim ecosystem service losses.