Environmental Assessment
Volume C-5.3
Slurry Pipeline
Land Use
5.3.6
Mitigation
Much of the mitigation for land use is based on project design. The slurry
pipeline has been routed to avoid villages, primary forest, and key agricultural
land use areas. Additional fine-tuning of the route will occur prior to
construction so that effects in key land use areas indicated in Table 5.3-1 will be
further reduced. Individuals who are still affected will be compensated. The
pipeline will be buried along most of its length, in order to avoid impacts on
access and the movement of both people and livestock.
Land uses outside of the project footprint have the potential to be impacted by the
project, but planned mitigations will reduce such effects to very low levels.
These mitigations include:
•
Implementing erosion control and rapid revegetation procedures to
maintain water quality for flows across the pipeline RoW (described in
soils, Volume B, Section 3.3).
•
Making available the viable timber by setting the timber aside.
•
Development of other socioeconomic mitigation and compensation
measures for those directly or indirectly affected by the project (such as
by impacts on their agricultural lands or water supplies), as described in
the socioeconomics section (Volume B, Section 5.1).
•
Reclaiming areas along the pipeline route as soon as feasible following
the completion of construction, to function ecologically in accordance
with regional land use objectives (described in Volume B, Section 6 and
Volume H, Appendix 7).
5.3.7
Conclusions
The project will have a small effect on land uses in the immediate area of the
project due to direct disturbance of lands used for rice, tavy agriculture,
plantations and woodlots. Although a small area of villages may be affected by
the current route of the pipeline, in cases where alternate options exist the
pipeline will be routed completely around villages and other important land use
areas. The project may also have indirect effects on land use in areas
surrounding the pipeline due to erosion from the surface of the RoW; reclamation
will mitigate this effect, but some compensation to landowners may be needed
for sedimentation during the construction phase. Finally, the project has the
potential to result in positive impacts due to the creation of access from land use
areas to roadways, which may enable the transport of additional agricultural
products to market. The magnitude of these impacts in socioeconomic terms are
evaluated in Volume B, Section 5.1.
Ambatovy Project
191
January 2006
