Summary of Preparatory Study Date: February, 2011 1. Title of the Cooperation Project, Relevant Project Report Project for the Rehabilitation of the Trunk Road, Phase IV (Dejen – Debre Markos Section) 2. Categorization and Reasons Category B Major reasons for categorization are as follows: - The project is to improve the current condition of the road with paving, not new construction. - Social and natural adverse impacts will be limited or minimized by the implementation of planned mitigation measures especially if there are any protected areas or considerable habitats such as national parks or conservation areas within close proximity to the project area. - With regard to the social impacts, although some resettlements are caused, the degree of the impact is not significant and minimized by appropriate implementation of the land acquisition and resettlement action plan. - The project has been categorized as “Schedule-2 Project” which does not require the Full scale EIA on the Ethiopian EIA Law (Environmental Impact Assessment Guideline Document (2000/ Environmental Protection Authority)). It means that the project does not have significant impacts on the social and natural areas. 3. Outline of the Project (Objectives, Justification, Activites, Location, Scale, etcetera) Ninety five percent (95%) of the international cargo transportation and interurban transportation in Ethiopia is borne by road traffic. The improvement of low density of the paved road conditions (paved road length 42,429 km compared to 1,100,000 square km of land area) and the road condition (51% of the total road length is in poor condition) is a critical issue for Ethiopia. To improve this situation, Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA) has endeavoured to develop the road network, especially the construction of the arterial roads based on the Road Sector Development Program (RSDP) from 1997 under the backing of foreign countries and international organizations. Ethiopia is a landlocked country surrounded by Djibouti, Eritrea, Sudan, Kenya and Somalia, therefore a concept of the RSDP is designed to develop an international corridor leading to these neighboring countries. The A3 trunk road between Addis Ababa and Metema at the Sudan border (a distance of about 988 km) is a vital corridor which connects Addis Ababa City as the market and the Amhara region which is a grain-growing region that covers forty percent of agricultural consumption in Ethiopia. Moreover, the road is used as a transportation route for fuel imported from Sudan which covers eighty percent of fuel consumption by the surrounding industries in the vicinity of Addis Ababa. The improvement of the road between Addis Ababa and Dejen (approximately 222 km) has been implemented as a Japanese Grant Aid Project in response to GOE’s request for the rehabilitation of the A3 trunk road from Addis Ababa to Debremarkos. On the other hand, the sections from Debremarkos to Bahar Dar (approximately 265 km) and 1 from Bahar Dar to Gondar, (approximately 213 km) has been improved and paved under the aid of the World Bank in 2004 and 2007 respectively. Moreover, the section between Gondar-and Metema (approximately 221 km) at the border of Sudan is scheduled to be paved in 2010 by GOE funds. Only the section between Dejen and Debremarkos (65.5 km) remains as unpaved road. The objective of the project is to improve the traffic flow and safety of transportation on the A3 trunk road between Dejen and Debremarkos through the rehabilitation of the roads and bridges. Ethiopia Debre Marcos Project Area Dejen Addis Ababa Figure 3-1 Map of Project 2 4. Outline of the Location (Maps, Environmental and Social Conditions, Problems, etcetera) The project area is located in the northwestern area of the country, the Amhara National Regional State. The target road passes Gozamin-Wereda, Awabel-Wereda, Dejen-Wereda, Debre Markos/ Town/-Wereda, Aneded-Wereda, and the total population of these areas is 512,126 in accordance with statistical data. The major industry is agriculture, thus main land use also includes farming land and grazing area in the project area. The project area is located in the center of the Ethiopian highland, the elevation of Degen is approximately 2,500 ms, and Debre Markos is approximately 2,400 ms respectively. Fourteen rivers, such as Bechet river, Taba river, Abeya river, Bogena river, Getla river, Ziba river, Yeda river, and Chemoga river are running from the east to the west side in the project area. Abeya, Getla and Yeda rivers flood mainly in the rainy season, thus vehicles are not able to pass these rivers. The project is to improve the roads using existing roads, and land use along the road is already developed, therefore the project does not have a significant impact overall. However, some mitigation measures are required from the view of social considerations since some residential areas such as Dejen, Lumame, Amber, and Debre Markos are located along the road. Distribution of the residential area is shown below: Figure 4-1 Distribution of Residential Area 5. Title of the Regulations under which the Environmental and Social Considerations Study has been conducted The Environmental Impact Assessment (hereinafter referred to as “EIA”) process is a requirement of the Environmental impact assessment guideline document (2000/ Environmental Protection Authority). A concrete process and the conditions are explained in “Environmental Procedures Manual (2001/ ERA)” According to this procedure, the road development project is recognized under “economic infrastructure and services/transport,” with actual classification carried out based on the 3 project’s characteristics such as project scale and location. It is concluded that the project is categorized as “Schedule-2” and still under process for the approval of an environmental license. The “Schedule-2” is defined in the guideline and process of environmental approval as shown below: Table 5-1 Project Classification (Economic Infrastructures and Services/Transport) Category Definition / Target Project Projects which may have adverse and significant environmental impacts, and may, therefore, require full EIA. - Major urban roads Schedule 1 - Rural road programmes (Required EIA) - Rail infrastructure and railways - Airports with a basic runway length of 2,100 m or more - Trans-regional and International high way Schedule 2 Projects whose type, scale or other relevant characteristics have potential to cause some significant (After the review of IEIA, environmental impacts but not likely to warrant an environmental impact study. the necessity for EIA is - Upgrading or rehabilitation of major rural roads determined) - Airports with basic runway length less than 2,100 m Projects which would have no impact and does not require environmental impact assessment - Upgrading involving only minor realignment, no extension and no new bridges for all road Schedule 3 classes (No further environmental - Rehabilitation, including reconstruction, where the widening is only a small percentage of the assessment required) existing width of the travel area of all road classes - Periodic and routine maintenance of all road classes - Traffic management projects for all road classes Note: Environmental Impact Assessment Guideline Document (2000/ EPA) Environmental Procedures Manual (2001/ ERA) [Current Status on the EIA approval process] ERA carries out required EIA activities based on the alignment in detailed design which was prepared HEC. However the route and alignment of the detailed design are revised in JICA’s preparatory survey from the view of social consideration, thus the JICA Survey Team confirmed the following from ERA regarding expected EIA process and the current situation. - A draft EIA report is available which has not been submitted to EPA - A delegation of authority regarding Environmental Compliance Certificate was conducted from EPA to ERA since predicted impacts are not serious The approval process is shown in the next figure. 4 Figure5-1 Law-based EIA Approval Process Source: Environmental Impact Assessment Guideline Document (2000/ Environmental Protection Authority) Environmental Procedures Manual (2001/ ERA) Interview from ERA 6. Adverse Environmental and Social Impacts (Results of Scoping and Environmental and Social Considerations Studies) 1) Results of Scoping The relationship between impact factors by stages and impact items are shown in the table below. Some impacts are predicted in the social, natural and public pollution area. However most of these impacts are negligible and not significant. 5 Items to be analyzed are picked up from the scoping matrix in the table below. Table 6-1 Scoping Matrix for the Project (Road Improvement) Impact Item Factor Planning Construction Post Phase Phase Const. , Traffic asphalt asphalt of hrough hrough t Overall Rating Overall concrete Compensation Land Acquisition and quarry sites and detour and sites quarry Equipment and Vehicles and Equipment Operation of Construction Construction of Operation such as as removal such Construction of base camp base of Construction Increase of filling, drilling, tunnel, etc. tunnel, drilling, filling, Development of borrow pits, pits, borrow of Development Influx of construction workers construction of Influx Alteration to ground by cut land No Likely Impacts waste construction of Generation 1 Resettlement B B Land use and utilization of local 3 B B B resources Social institutions such as local 5 B B decision-making institutions Social Water Usage or Water Rights and 10 B B Env. Common Rights 11 Sanitation B B Hazards (Risk) 12 Infectious diseases such as B B HIV/AIDS 13 Accidents B B B 15 Soil Erosion B B B 23 Air pollution B B B Natural 24 Water pollution B B B B Env. 26 Wastes B B B 27 Noise and Vibration B B B Rating: A: Serious impact is expected B: Some impact is expected No rating item: Few adverse impacts is expected or negligible Table 6-2 Rating Reasons Impact Item Rating Reasons of Rating Expected numbers of affected structures are reduced from 159 to 40 due to Resettlement (or Loss 1 B mitigation measures. Thus this project does not give serious negative impacts on this of Properties) item basically.