BENEFITS OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT ON RURAL DWELLERS IN RURAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS OF OYO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study examined the benefits of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on rural dwellers in rural community development projects of Oyo State, Nigeria. Two hundred and fifty (250) rural dwellers were chosen using a multistage sampling technique. Statistical analysis was performed using Chi-square, and Pearson and Product Moment Correlation. According to the awareness on EIA by rural dwellers, 95.3% of respondents in the study region highly aware and blamed their government for being ignorant regarding EIA’s issues. The survey found that corruption (= 4.37) was the major problem facing the usage of EIA in rural community development projects. Thus, 39.3% of respondents confirmed that EIA had substantive benefits for optimal project sitting and design. The chi-square test at p < 0.05 revealed that sex, religion, marital status, educational attainment, and occupation of the rural dwellers were significant with benefits of EIA on them. However, the correlation results revealed that monthly income (r = 0.039, p = 0.007) of the rural dwellers was significant with benefits of EIA on them in terms of rural community development projects. The findings of this research suggest that after applying the concept, rural inhabitants who used EIA were better able to make environmentally responsible decisions and plan programmes for rural community development projects.