Draft Technical Guidance - Subterranean Fauna Survey for Environmental Impact Assessment

Overview

The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) is revising its Technical Guidance on surveys for the EPA Factor Subterranean Fauna for environmental impact assessments in Western Australia.

Consolidation and revision of the EPA’s guidance is required to align survey effort, methods, and analysis with contemporary practices in WA, to outline the EPA’s expectations for EIA survey and to provide clarity for industry and consultants.

Key changes in the revised guidance:

• alignment of content, structure, format and terminology with contemporary EPA guidance
• increased number of recommended survey phases to better inform impact assessment for subterranean fauna
• reduced prescription around sampling effort for detailed surveys to allow for flexible survey design in relation to the scale and nature of impacts
• greater emphasis on habitat connectivity
• updated information on data standards and reporting
• updated survey techniques consistent with contemporary practices.

The EPA is seeking your views and feedback associated with revision of its revised draft Technical Guidance – Subterranean Fauna Survey for Environmental Impact Assessment. In particular, the EPA is seeking feedback on the new habitat assessment and updated survey techniques sections and have the following targeted questions:

• Does the guidance adequately reflect contemporary best-practice in EIA?
• Does the revised guidance contain adequate detail for environmental practitioners?

In addition, where you have data to support variations to the survey techniques and effort recommended, the EPA welcome feedback as part of your submission. 

All submissions are welcome and will be considered by the EPA. The EPA encourages submissions to be made through the EPA’s Consultation Hub. The consultation closes at 5pm 15 July 2021.

Download the Draft Technical Guidance- Subterranean Fauna Survey for Environmental Impact Assessment here.

This Technical Guidance updates and replaces two existing Technical Guidance documents. Links to the existing technical guidance documents in the EPA’s Subterranean Fauna policy suite are listed below:

• Technical Guidance – Subterranean Fauna Surveys
• Technical Guidance - Sampling methods for subterranean fauna

The EPA’s Environmental Factor Guideline – Subterranean Fauna will be retained.

What happens next

This Consultation has now closed. For further information please contact info.epa@dwer.wa.gov.au.