Under the guidance of “Implementation Plan for the Reform of EIA in 13^th Five-year Plan (2015-2020)”, reforms have been carried out aiming to streamline administration, delegate more powers, improve regulation and provide better service [4]. In March 2015, the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) issued the “Plan for Decoupling of EIA Agencies from Environmental Protection Department” and started to abolish the “Government-affiliated Intermediary Agency”. All those EIA agencies are required to change to companies or withdraw from the EIA service market by the end of 2016. From January 2017, the EIA approval for the Environmental Impact Registration Form (EIRF), which is required to be compiled by those projects causing little environmental impacts, has been cancelled and only needs to complete the online registration. With this change, it is expected to reduce the cost of EIA approval and increase its efficiency. In December 2018, the qualification management for EIA agencies was canceled (REPMCP, 2017). The agencies were not classified into the 1^st, 2^nd or 3^rd grade, and a certain number of EIA engineers in each agency were not indispensable anymore, which was expected to reduce the chaos of certificate borrowing and attachment. Afterward, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) was established. The MEE, replacing the former MEP, takes the overall responsibility for the environmental management and ecological protection and opens a new era of “super-ministry” [5]. The list of reforms is summarized in Table 1.

Source: regulations and laws; policy interpretations.

Also, the set of reforms were carried out being accompanied by the continuingly promulgation and revision of relevant laws and regulations. For example, the Environmental Protection Law (EPL) was revised in 2014, the EIA Law was revised in 2016 and 2018, the Regulations on Environmental Protection Management of Construction Projects (REPMCP) was revised in 2017, the Measures for Public Participation in EIA (MPPEIA) was issued in 2015 and revised in 2018, and the Technical Guidelines (TGs) have also been revised in recent years. Throughout all those reforms, to improve the effectiveness of EIA is seen as the mainline [6]. However, the question of whether these reforms improve the effectiveness of EIA deserves to be examined. The effectiveness of the reformed EIA system needs to be evaluated.

As to the effectiveness studies, Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), as the direct outcome of EIA, is an indicator of the performance of the EIA systems and attracts great attention [7]. Besides, comparative case studies are conducted. The EIA system in China is compared with different countries, including the United States, Canada, Japan and Korea [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]. Through checklist comparison, the deficiencies may be found and lessons can be learned from these countries’ practices.

Also, some researchers evaluate the performance of specific cases by examining the perception of experts [13] [14]. Wang, Morgan and Cashmore, 2003 [1] evaluated the effectiveness of Project EIA and pointed out that despite the new EIA law (2002), the EIA in China still faces old problems. Ren et al., 2013 [2] analyzed the main reasons for weak EIA enforcement and implementation, which include the political system and incentive mechanisms, institutional arrangements, regulatory and methodological shortcomings. Jia et al., 2011 [15] compared the technical guidelines for Plan EIA between old and new versions. However, the development of EIA in China since 2015 when the “reform storm” started, and the comparison before and after reforms have not been sufficiently discussed by past researches. The most important is that the evaluation model appropriate for the reformed EIA system is not proposed yet.

In 1995, Wood established 14 criteria of an ideal EIA system to test the performance of EIA systems. Ahmad and Wood (2002) [16], additionally added ten criteria and classified them into systemic measures and foundation measures. The systemic measures are defined as “features of EIA systems that are designed to deliver quality assurance in the practice and administration of EIA”. They aim at evaluating the performance of EIA system attributes, including legislative provisions, administrative setup and EIA process. Foundation measures are described as “features which promote good practice and underpin the successful application of the systemic approaches”, such as training and capacity building. Afterward, Ahmed and Wood’s criteria have been extensively used in many countries [17] [18]. Thanks to the including of foundation measures, Ahmed and Wood’s ideal evaluation criteria are exactly appropriate to evaluate the reformed EIA system in China, which tend to pay more attention to supervision and penalties.

Therefore, the present study, first, elaborates on the set of reforms, compare the EIA system before and after reforms. Then, revise Ahmed and Wood’s model to make it appropriate for the Chinese context. At last, evaluate the effectiveness of the reformed EIA system against the proposed criteria. Considering that the reforms are mainly about the process of Project EIA, the discussion specifically focuses on Project EIA.

The research framework is shown in Figure 1. We extensively review the legislations and regulations, official policy interpretations, academic articles and news reports in the past ten years. The formal official documents show well the reform intentions and actions of the government. At the same time, the news reports can speak out the comments of experts, the complaints of public and NGOs, and the suggestions of EIA engineers. As a supplement, we conduct in-depth semi-structured interviews with six senior EIA engineers who have many years of work experience.

To revise the evaluation criteria, we identify the important notions mentioned many times in the literature and interviews, then delete the irrelated sub-criteria, add the important ones, and reclassify them. To evaluate the effectiveness of EIA, we conduct the descriptive evaluation, through analyzing the documents and past researchers’ comments and supplementing with opinions of interviewees. The interview questions cover all evaluation criteria and the problems we found in the literature review. To guarantee an unbiased survey, we interview with opening questions, for example: “How do you think about…?” In the following discussion, the interviewees are represented by a simple code to preserve their anonymity.

The EPL is the backbone of environmental legislation, which is complemented by several specific laws related to environmental elements such as atmospheric, water and noise pollution prevention and control [1]. Besides, a package of laws and regulations describe how EIA should be carried out. Commonly referred to as “one law and two regulations”, the most relevant ones are the EIA Law, Regulations on Environmental Protection Management of Construction Projects (REPMCP) and Regulations on Planning EIA (RPEIA) [4].

The REPMCP [21] was issued in 1998 and stipulated the environmental protection tool, including “Three Simultaneities (3Ss)” and “EIA”. 3Ss requires the environmental protection facilities to be designed, constructed and operated simultaneously with projects, while EIA is responsible for approving the construction of projects. The first version of EIA Law was implemented in 2003 and incorporated into the EIA for Planning. The specific law for Planning EIA, RPEIA, was issued in 2009. As a result, the EIA system of “one law and two regulations” was officially established. With economic growth and social development, reforms were carried out to streamline administration, while strengthening supervision [22]. The EIA Law was revised in 2016 and 2018. And, the law for construction projects, RACPEP, was revised in 2017.

Before the reform, environmental protection duties were dispersed in many different departments such as the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA). In 2018, the MEE was established, which integrated the scattered environmental protection responsibilities and took the overall responsibility for environmental management and ecological protection [5]. The Ecological and Environmental Protection Bureaus (EEPBs) at provincial and county levels are responsible for the ecological and environmental protection within their jurisdictions.

The Department of EIA and Emission Management within MEE is in charge of overseeing and coordinating the implementation of EIA and pollutant emission permits nationwide, reviewing the Strategic and Planning EIA, technically re-reviewing the Project EIA and conducting the post-EIA [23]. The Appraisal Centre for Environment and Engineering is responsible for providing technical support, conducting EIA technical reviews and training EIA engineers and EEPB officials [24].

As shown in Figure 2, the process of Project EIA in China is fully compatible with the generic steps that are followed internationally. In the screening phase, projects can be divided into A, B and C three categories using the list and threshold approaches [25]. In the scoping phase, through the preliminary analysis of engineering projects and the baseline analysis of the existing environmental status quo, the environmental impacts can be identified and the evaluation factors can be selected. The environmental factors, which including atmospheric environment, surface water, groundwater, sound, soil environment and ecological impact, all need to be considered. Corresponding to the severity and sensitivity of impacts, working-level from I to III with descending rigorous can be determined (TG).

Then, the EISs are compiled from all the above analysis. For low impact C-category projects, developers can compile registration forms (EIRF) by themselves and, thanks to the reform, simply submit them online. For B-category projects, simplified forms (EIF) are sufficient, but detailed reports (EIR) are required for high-impact A-category projects. Before the reform, developers had to contract EIA agencies to compile EIF and EIR. From 2018, developers are also allowed to do it themselves, but the main compilers are required to be qualified engineers. Afterward, the EIR and EIF need to be submitted to the EEPBs to be reviewed and get approval. The final approval of the proposal usually includes a series of conditions under which development may proceed. These conditions need to be followed during the construction, operation and decommissioning of projects.

In the past, China paid the most attention to Project EIA, which can only reject the construction of a single project while not influence the initial decision and layout. Nowadays, the Strategic EIA (SEA), which refers to EIA for policies, plans and programs (PPP), has been given more emphasis, aiming to incorporate environmental protection into the decision-making process [26]. Generally, there exists a tiered system among PPP, that starts with the formulation of policy at the upper level, then followed by the plan at the second stage, and the program at the end [27]. However, the SEA hierarchy in China is incomplete.

SEA in China only covers “plan”, called Planning (guī huà) EIA (RPEIA). As is required, the Project EIA should be accordant with the local Planning EIA. However, its implementation is low, and many projects still do not have Planning EIA to follow (interviewee #2, 2019). As to “policy”, although the Article 14 of EPL (2015) mentions “the governments need to take the environment into consideration when they formulate economic and technological policies”, there are no corresponding regulations to stipulate and guide the implementation of Policy EIA. As to “program”, it is missing in Chinese characters [28]. The actions meeting the definition of “program” made by Wood and Dejeddour [27] are, in practice, subject to Project EIA, which makes their EIA measures and technologies inappropriate.

Besides, the revised EPL came into force in 2015 and was regarded as the ever-strictest. However, the hierarchical position of EPL is not high enough to ensure the force of law. EPL has the same hierarchical position as other specific laws, such as Water Law and Forestry Law. That is, the specific laws do not have to be entirely in accordance with EPL [29]. This may lead to a possible conflict between them and give the developers an excuse to comply with specific laws other than EPL. As a result, the strict legal provisions of EPL easily become empty talk.

With the implementation of the vertical management reform for EEPBs under the provincial level since 2016, the administrative setup is more efficient and effective. The relationship between local governments and environmental protection departments changed. The management of EEPBs altered from local governments to higher-level of environmental protection authorities. The provincial EEPB is in charge of municipal EEPBs, who are supervising counties EEPBs. Besides, the right of law enforcement is decentralized to the municipal and county level. As a result, local governments’ responsibility for environmental quality and management has been strengthened [30]. However, this reform is still at the initial stage, and there are still several problems to tackle [31]. For example, how to guarantee the implementation of the environmental responsibility of local governments, how to coordinate the relationship between EEPBs with other local environmental protection departments, and how to strengthen the supervision of local EEPBs. Indeed, this vertical management reform needs to be improved. It is undeniably an excellent attempt to strengthen the overall management of environmental protection in the whole province.