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The main purpose of this booklet is to provide a ready and simple guide for using Environmental Impact Assessment as a planning and management tool for decision making in the South Pacific Region. It is primarily for government officials who are normally too busy to look at voluminous reference manuals, and also for private developers, non-government officials and interested individuals.

On low lying coral islands, potable water is commonly sourced from shallow, fresh groundwater lenses. Although rainwater is also collected in tanks in the wet periods, dependence on the lense for all water needs becomes critical in dry periods. Protecting the groundwater from pollution is a major concern. In the management of reticulated supplies private land is sometimes converted to a public reserve to restrict access and use in an attempt to ensure that groundwater is protected from surface contaminants. Usually this is achieved by a lease agreement between landholders and the government utility and this arrangement can be politically, socially and economically contentious. However in the village context where private wells are still used by landholders, control of pollution sources is more practically complex, while still raising many sociocultural considerations. This paper describes