Evaluating the effectiveness of the environmental impact assessment process in Mongolia for nomadic-pastoral land users

The aim of this article is to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of Mongolia’s EIA processes for nomadic-pastoral land use(rs) (NPLU(rs)). NPLU(rs) are often overlooked in many spatial policies, so the justification for this study is to improve the EIA processes regarding impacts on NPLU. This is the first study to examine EIA effectiveness for NPLA(s) specifically. It employs a Likert survey of 50 respondents based on the framework of Hanna and Noble (2015). The results of this study indicate that there is indeed an immense gap between how EIA should be carried out and its implementation processes in practice. We find that although the EIA framework has good ambitions and is relying on a sound legislative and institutional set-up in Mongolia, it lacks stakeholder confidence, participation and the effectiveness in mitigating both social and environmental impacts associated with NPLU failing to ensure substantive gains to pastureland resources. Improvements are especially required in EIA practice, impact prediction methods suitable for dynamic land use, capacity building, transparency, EIA integration into spatial planning, and stakeholder engagement.