Chapter VIII

ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND ENVIRONMENTAL DATABASES

Section 1. ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION

Article 99. Management of environmental information

1. Environmental information is specified in clause 1 Article 114 of the LEP. Several pieces of information are elaborated as follows:

a) Information about waste source includes information about owners of investment projects, businesses, investors in construction and commercial operation of infrastructure of dedicated areas for production, business operation and service provision and industrial clusters; information on generation and receiving bodies of wastewater, emissions, noise, vibration, solid waste and hazardous waste; information on scrap permitted to be imported as raw materials for productions with respect to establishments using imported scrap as raw materials for production; information about hazardous waste received and treated with respect to hazardous waste treatment service providers; technical infrastructure for environmental protection; environmental monitoring and management program; environmental improvement and remediation scheme, biodiversity offsets scheme, environmental emergency prevention and response plan and other environmental protection measures; information about emission sources from traffic, agricultural production and livelihood activities;

b) Information about waste includes volume generated, collected, treated, recycled and reused for each type of domestic solid waste, normal industrial solid waste, hazardous waste, domestic wastewater, industrial wastewater, dust, emissions and other types of waste prescribed by law; waste treatment technologies and works, results of monitoring of various types of waste;

c) Information on the current state of environmental quality includes information and data on the current state, changes and prediction of the quality of air, soil, continental surface water, sediment, groundwater and seawater; zoning of water uses, quotas for discharge of waste into water; contaminated points and sites, information on environmental emergencies, residue-contaminated sites; environmental remediation plans and measures, solutions for protecting surface water and improving surface water quality;

d) Information on nature and biodiversity conservation includes information on natural heritage sites, wildlife sanctuaries and biodiversity conservation facilities; important wetlands; information on ecosystems, organisms and genetic resources; information on pressures on biodiversity; measures to manage and conserve biodiversity; licenses in relation to management and conservation of biodiversity.

2. Management of environmental information includes:

a) Organizing collection of environmental information and information about organizations and individuals providing and creating information; time for providing and creating information as prescribed by law;

b) Incorporating and storing environmental information in environmental databases through application platforms, digital environmental data services and other record and document management systems according to regulations;

c) Providing environmental information and descriptive information about environmental information to environment authorities as prescribed in Article 100 of this Decree;

d) Providing environmental information as requested by organizations and individuals and disclosing environmental information as prescribed in Articles 101 and 102 of this Decree;

dd) Processing and consolidating environmental information in service of state management of environmental protection.

Article 100. Provision of environmental information to environmental information managing authorities

1. Environmental information and enclosed information shall be provided to an environment authority through:

a) environmental information systems and environmental databases at all levels prescribed in Article 106 of this Decree; or

b) reports prescribed by law; or

c) other methods prescribed by law.

2. The time of provision of each type of environmental information shall comply with regulations of law on reporting and updating environmental information systems and environmental databases and depend on request from an environmental protection authority.

3. Environmental information providers shall be held accountable for the adequacy, accuracy and promptness of information.

Article 101. Providing environmental information at organizations and individual’s request

1. Providing environmental information at organizations and individual’s request shall be subject to regulations of law on information access, law on intellectual property and regulations of this Decree.

2. Environmental information shall be provided at the request of an organization or individual:

a) Through online public services or digital data services;

b) Under an agreement between the organization or individual with the environmental information managing authority;

c) By other methods prescribed by regulations of law on information access.

3. Procedures for providing environmental information at the request of an organization or individual:

a) Procedures, applications and form of written request for provision of environmental information specified in points a and c clause 2 of this Article shall comply with regulations of law on information access. If it required to pay a fee for provision of environmental information, the organization or individual requesting information shall pay the fee as prescribed by law;

b) If environmental information is requested to be provided as prescribed in point b clause 2 of this Article, the procedures and time limit for providing such environmental information shall be determined under the agreement between the environmental information managing authority and the organization or individual requesting information.

Article 102. Disclosure of environmental information

1. Every owner of an investment project, business, investor in construction and commercial operation of infrastructure of a dedicated area for production, business operation and service provision or industrial cluster shall disclose their EIAR for which the appraisal result has been approved and environmental license as prescribed by the LEP as follows:

a) The disclosure shall be made on their website or at the People’s Committee of the commune where the investment project, business, dedicated area for production, business operation and service provision or industrial cluster is located;

b) The disclosure shall be made within 10 days after obtaining the decision on approval of EIAR report appraisal result or the environmental license.

2. Every owner of an investment project, business, investor in construction and commercial operation of infrastructure of a dedicated area for production, business operation and service provision or industrial cluster that is required to carry out automatic and continuous or periodic monitoring of wastewater, dust and industrial emission shall disclose their monitoring results as prescribed by the LEP as follows:

a) Their automatic and continuous waste monitoring results (including the comparison with the permissible limits of licensed pollutants) shall be made on their website or on the electronic bulletin board located at the entrance of the project or business. The location of the electronic bulletin board must facilitate supervision and monitoring by the people. The disclosure shall be made immediately after the monitoring results are available and the monitoring results shall be disclosed continuously for a period of 30 days;

b) The latest waste monitoring result report shall be disclosed on their website or on the electronic bulletin board located at the entrance of the project or business. The disclosure shall be made within 10 days after the periodic waste monitoring result is available until the date on which the new periodic monitoring result is disclosed as prescribed.

3. Every owner of a hazardous waste treatment service provider shall disclose information about types and quantity of collected and treated hazardous waste, treatment method; information about names and addresses of collected and treated hazardous waste generators and other environmental information prescribed by the LEP as follows:

a) The disclosure shall be made on their website or at the People’s Committee of the commune where the provider operates;

b) The disclosure of such information shall be made within 05 days after the annual environmental protection report is released and repeated every year during its operation period.

4. Every EIAR appraising authority and licensing authority shall disclose its decision on approval of EIAR appraisal result and the environmental license as prescribed by the LEP as follows:

a) The disclosure shall be made on their website, except for information classified as state secrets or enterprises’ trade secrets as prescribed by law;

b) The disclosure shall be made within 05 days after issuing the decision on approval of EIAR report appraisal result and the environmental license.

5. Every licensing authority shall disclose reports on proposal for issuance of environmental license as prescribed by the LEP as follows:

a) Such reports shall be disclosed on the website of the appraising authority;

b) The disclosure shall be made within 05 days after a valid application is received until the environmental license is issued.

6. MONRE and every provincial People’s Committee shall disclose monitoring results of quality of soil, air, surface water, groundwater, seawater, sediment and aquatic environment of surface water sources as prescribed by the LEP as follows:

a) The disclosure shall be made on the website or electronic bulletin board of the affiliated specialized environmental protection authority;

b) Regarding automatic and continuous monitoring, the disclosure shall be made immediately after the monitoring result is available and such monitoring result shall be disclosed within 30 days;

c) Regarding periodic monitoring, the disclosure shall be disclosed within 05 days after the monitoring result report is available until the date on which the new periodic monitoring result is disclosed as prescribed.

7. Every provincial People’s Committee shall disclose information about sources of waste discharged into surface water and sources potentially causing environmental emergencies within its province as prescribed by the LEP as follows:

a) The disclosure shall be made on the website of the provincial specialized environmental protection authority;

b) Information shall be annually disclosed and the disclosure shall be made within 05 days after obtaining the competent authority’s written approval for list of sources of pollution or sources potentially causing environmental emergencies until an updated or replacing document is available.

8. Environmental protection authorities at all levels shall disclose their environmental emergency response plans; information about environmental emergencies as prescribed by the LEP as follows:

a) The disclosure shall be made on the website of the affiliated specialized environmental protection authority;

b) The disclosure shall be made within 05 days after the plan or report is promulgated and an updated or replacing document is available or until the emergency is completely handled in the case of information about environmental emergency.

9. Any organization or individual that provides and receives payments for ecosystem services (PES) shall disclose its PES scheme enclosed with a map showing boundaries, boundary markers, area of the site providing ecosystem services; list of organizations and individuals using and paying for ecosystem services; list of beneficiaries, amounts to be received, payment plan as prescribed by the LEP as follows:

a) The disclosure shall be made on the website of the organization or individual that provides and receives payments for ecosystem services or website of the provincial environmental protection authority or at the communal People’s Committee;

b) The disclosure shall be made on a quarterly and annual basis. The disclosure shall be made within 05 days after the scheme or the list of organizations and individuals is approved.

10. Regarding the environmental information subject to mandatory disclosure as prescribed by other relevant laws, the disclosure thereof shall be made in accordance with such laws.

Section 2. ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND ENVIRONMENTAL DATABASES

Article 103. Policies for investment in building and use of environmental information systems and environmental databases

The State shall formulate a policy to prioritize investment in execution of projects on building and operation of the environmental information system as follows:

1. Develop digital data and environmental digital technology platforms in support of state management, policy making, decision support, inspection and monitoring of environmental protection activities and environmental analysis, forecasting and early warning.

2. Connect environmental data and information from ministries, ministerial agencies and local governments, establish connection with the national data portal serving e-Government operation and development of digital Government, digital economy, digital society and smart cities.

3. Innovate, invent and apply new technologies and smart devices to acquire, manage, analyze, process, share, exploit and use environmental information and data and ensure their security.

4. Change the working style of regulatory bodies in which regulatory bodies can interact with people or enterprises digitally.

5. Encourage organizations, individuals and communities to participate in receiving, contributing, sharing, exploiting and providing services, value added, create digital content market in terms of environmental information and data.

Article 104. Maintaining operation of environmental information systems and environmental databases at all levels

1. MONRE, other Ministries, ministerial agencies and provincial People’s Committees shall provide funding for investment in, construction, management and operation of environmental information systems and environmental databases as prescribed; satisfy the conditions concerning human resources, information technology infrastructure and information security so as for the environmental information systems and environmental databases at all levels to operate in a stable and efficient manner that ensures cyberinformation security and compliance with regulations of law.

2. Personnel operating and managing environmental information systems and environmental databases shall be taken from local personnel or through information technology services or other methods as per the law.

3. Private-sector investment, hiring of information technology services, utilization of sources of economic sectors are prioritized and encouraged.

4. MONRE shall formulate technical regulations and provide guidance on building, management and operation of environmental information systems and environmental databases at all levels; inspect and supervision the process of connection and sharing of data with environmental databases as prescribed by law.

Article 105. Requirements for environmental databases at all levels

1. The national environmental database manages the environmental information specified in the specified in clause 1 Article 114 of the Law LEP on the national scale; connects and incorporates information from specialized environmental databases and environmental databases of Ministries, ministerial-level agencies and provinces nationwide; is built, operated and managed by the specialized environmental protection authority affiliated to MONRE to meet the requirements of the national database as prescribed.

2. Every provincial environmental database manages the environmental information specified in the specified in clause 1 Article 114 of the Law LEP within its province and under its jurisdiction; is built, operated and managed by the specialized environmental protection authority; connects, provides and updates environmental information to the national environmental database.

3. Every environmental database of a Ministry or ministerial agency manages the environmental information specified in points d and dd clause 1 Article 114 of the LEP within the scope of industries and fields; is built, operated and managed by the Ministry or ministerial agency; connects, provides and updates environmental information to the national environmental database.

4. The specialized environmental database is a database of one specialized field of environment; is built, operated and managed according to actual managerial requirements imposed by the environmental protection authority; provides information and data to the national environmental database.

5. Environmental databases at all levels shall comply with relevant regulations of law; Vietnam’s e-Government architecture framework and ministerial e-Government architecture framework or provincial e-Government architecture framework; satisfy standards and technical regulations as prescribed; uses the same shared data catalog and master data included in the national environmental database.

6. The connection and sharing between environmental databases at all levels shall comply with the Government’s regulations on management, connection and sharing of digital data within regulatory bodies; regulations laid down by the Ministry of Information and Communications and MONRE.

Article 106. Providing and updating information and data to environmental databases

1. Investment project and business owners shall provide and update the environmental information specified in points a, b and c clause 1 Article 114 of the LEP and other relevant regulations of law to the national and provincial environmental databases under their jurisdiction and according to the guidelines provided by the environmental information managing authority.

2. Ministries and ministerial agencies shall provide and update the environmental information under their management specified in points d and dd clause 1 Article 114 of the LEP and other relevant regulations of law to the national environmental database.

3. Provincial People’s Committees shall provide and update the environmental information within their provinces and under their jurisdiction to the national environmental database.

4. Methods for providing and updating information and data to environmental databases at all levels are as follows:

a) Through connection and sharing of data between environmental databases at all levels;

b) Declaring and updating data directly via application software; automatic and smart devices and systems;

c) Providing electronic information and data in case the environmental protection authority is yet to deploy the methods mentioned in points a and b of this clause.

Article 107. Building, operation and management of environmental databases

The operation and management of environmental databases cover the following tasks:

1. Build environmental databases by following MONRE’s guidance.

2. Collect, create, enter, integrate and connect data to databases.

3. Inspect and assess the management of quality of data in environmental databases.

4. Analyze and aggregate data in support of state management and disclose environmental information and data.

5. Introduce the environmental open data catalog in the field of environment, organize formulation of plans and publish environmental open data under management as prescribed

6. Operate, provide information technology infrastructure and ensure information security and cybersecurity for operation of environmental databases.

7. Develop and adopt backup solutions so as to ensure data integrity and safety. If data is corrupted or destroyed as a result of illegal acts, there must be a data recovery mechanism