Ecological quality loss and damage compensation in estuaries: Clues from a lawsuit in the Basque Country, Spain

This article presents a controversial environmental impact assessment (EIA) case, which was finally settled by the passing of a court sentence. The sentence enforced a payment to compensate for the economic damage caused to a fish farm through local environmental changes in the Urola river estuary, located in the Basque Country. The damage was allegedly caused by a breakwater extension built at the mouth of the estuary to protect access to a recreation port project within it. While the sentence settled the meaning of compensation from an economic perspective, it still left unanswered questions on the difficulty of undertaking ecological compensation within EIA practice. May be these difficulties account for the lack of compensation, which we have observed in a variety of cases in Spain, particularly in coastal development projects.

► We present an EIA controversial case on a coastal project, finally settled by a sentence.
► We approach the way compensation is tackled within EIA processes in Spain.
► Economic and ecological perspectives on compensation for coastal projects are compared.
► Undertaking ecological compensation shows some difficulties, whose causes are discussed.