National Planning Agency
Assessment and reporting obligations
This website uses automatic translation for English content, which may not fully capture the original meaning. For complete accuracy, refer to the Icelandic version, which is the official source.
It lists two categories of projects, A and B.
Implementation categories
Group A
Larger projects that always require an environmental assessment and are likely to have a high environmental impact and are projects in that category that require an assessment. Examples:
power plants with 10 MW or more electricity
a substance disrupting a plot of 25 hectares or more
material quantity of 500,000 m3 or more. They must undergo an environmental assessment first and the draft is a draft assessment plan.
The procedure for projects in category A begins with a creation of a plan.
Group B
Constructions that are smaller than in category A are required to report to the Agency. They can have an impact on the environment and the Agency decides whether the construction needs an environmental assessment or not. Examples:
new-growth of forests on an area greater than 200 hectares
hydropower plants with electricity of 200 kW or more (up to 10 MW).
The procedure for these projects starts with the notification of the project.
The procedure for category B projects begins a notification to the National Planning Agency .
More details in Icelandic
A summary of the projects in categories A and B can be found in 1. viðauka laga um umhverfismat framkvæmda og áætlana.