Aspectos e Impactos Ambientais de Obras de Infraestrutura do Aeroporto Internacional do Recife – Pernambuco – Brasil

Abstract

The capacity of the Brazilian airport infrastructure is undergoing expansion through the National Civil Aviation Agency's (ANAC) concession program, in response to a lack of government investments in recent decades. The Recife/Guararapes – Gilberto Freyre International Airport is currently undergoing renovations and expansions to accommodate projected passenger growth in the coming years. This study aims to analyze the environmental aspects and impacts associated with the implementation of infrastructure projects for the airport's renovation and expansion. To achieve this goal, we identified environmental aspects and impacts using a modified cause-and-effect matrix based on the Degani (2003) framework for both the planning and construction phases. We assessed the inventoried environmental impacts using Conesa (2010) methodology. Additionally, we evaluated compliance with current environmental regulations in Brazil through a checklist. Furthermore, we gauged the relevance of 97 environmental management indicators, grouped into 8 categories adapted from Global Reporting Initiative standards, by consulting experts through a structured questionnaire, following the Delphi Panel method and Likert scale (1932) for measuring relevance. Our findings reveal the presence of environmental aspects and impacts in both project phases, with a predominance of moderate adverse environmental impacts across abiotic, biotic, and anthropic receptor domains. In terms of regulatory compliance, our study confirms adherence to current Brazilian environmental laws. We also propose monitoring 30 environmental management indicators for airport projects, along with their prioritization. Our data analysis demonstrates that the method employed for prioritizing indicators associated with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda enhances the identification of environmental aspects and impacts and contributes to mitigating adverse environmental effects. Furthermore, the Brazilian airport infrastructure concession program offers multifaceted benefits and the suggested list of indicators serves as a valuable tool for advancing several of the SDGs outlined by the United Nations in 2015