Feasibility study for an assessment of the relative impacts from exploitation of marine and land sand and gravel reserves

Objectives

• To evaluate methods and tools for assessing and weighting economic, social and environmental costs and benefits, whether quantitative or qualitative, in order to identify optimum approaches;
• To evaluate currently available sources of data in terms of relevance and quality and to identify weaknesses, omissions and limitations in data and in scientific understanding;
• To review the current processes for making decisions on permitting applications for extraction on the land and at sea and the extent to which environmental, social and economic parameters are taken into account at the planning and application levels;
• To discuss these matters with key stakeholders and to maintain a strong dialogue with the aggregates industry;
• To undertake a preliminary sustainability assessment, to the extent that the data permits, in order to establish whether useful results are likely to come from a full study;
• To make recommendations on how a full study should be undertaken, how additional data should be collected at reasonable cost and effort, and whether further development of methods would be needed;