Projekte (4)

Die rasche Entwicklung raumbezogener Techniken, wie räumliche Statistik und Fernerkundungstechnologie zur Erdbeobachtung, sowie die jüngsten Fortschritte in der künstlichen Intelligenz haben die Möglichkeiten zur Überwachung von Umweltprozessen verbessert. In den letzten Jahrzehnten hat das Bewusstsein dafür zugenommen, dass die Geospatialtechnologie die Fähigkeit besitzt, die Umwelt zu überwachen, zu inspizieren und zu bewerten und die von den Regulierungsbehörden benötigten Informationen zu liefern, um die Untersuchung von Umweltkriminalität und Verstößen gegen das Umweltrecht zu unterstützen. Die zuständigen Behörden in der EU müssen jedoch herausfinden, wie Informationen, die mit Hilfe von Geodaten generiert wurden, die Anforderungen für die Untersuchung spezifischer umweltkrimineller Handlungen am effizientesten erfüllen, damit sie vor Gericht verwendet werden können.

The project aims to define criteria for the assessment of environmental damage and imminent threat of damage and build technical and procedural capacity in screening cases and determining clues and evidence of environmental damage and threat of damage under the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD), caused by environmental incidents, violations, eco-criminal acts.

There is a diversity of national laws and regulations requiring operators to put in place plans and arrangements to prevent, respond to, and remediate environmental damage as a result of natural and technological incidents. Environment Protection Agencies also operate under a variety of duties and requirements to help operators prevent incidents, and to plan and execute incident and emergency response. This diversity of duties and requirements is likely to have resulted in inconsistent arrangements to prevent, and respond to, environmental incidents.

When sites go into liquidation provisions are generally not made for environmental clean-up and leave substantial environmental legacies which need subsequently to be addressed. Different solutions have been sought across Europe and include the use of insurance policies, financial provisions, and bonds. The issue of insolvency remains and even if provisions are made these are often ignored by the liquidator with the result that nothing is left for the environment as it is seen as subservient to company law. Ultimately lengthy legal battles may still result in the tax payer covering the expense – in direct contradiction of the polluter pays principle.