Researchers from Universidad de los Andes and PUCV are working together to validate and transfer an AI-based technological platform to support the processing of projects in the Environmental Impact Assessment System (SEIA).
The academic and researcher at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Carla Vairetti, leads this research that seeks to apply artificial intelligence to strengthen legal certainty in the environmental evaluation of projects in Chile. The initiative was recently awarded a FONDEF project, achieving first place in the metropolitan evaluation with a score of 4.82 out of 5. This led to the formation of an inter-faculty and inter-university team, which brings together specialists in law, engineering, linguistics, and environmental sciences. Participants from UANDES include Silvia Bertazzo, José Ignacio Martínez, Sergio Quijada, Pamela Bustamante and Carla Vairetti. From PUCV, the team includes Alan Bronfman, René Venegas and Magdalena Prieto.
The purpose is to scale, validate, and transfer a technological platform based on artificial intelligence to support the processing of projects submitted to the Environmental Impact Assessment System (SEIA). "Today this process faces high levels of regulatory uncertainty, inconsistent interpretation criteria, and long response times, which generates risks for both investment and environmental protection. The tool developed seeks to close these gaps by integrating legal-administrative analysis with the capacity to process large volumes of textual and geospatial information," says Vairetti.
In practice, the platform will make it possible to analyze resolutions, regulations, and environmental jurisprudence to identify decision criteria and regulatory trends; incorporate territorial and environmental data to facilitate early evaluation of the compatibility of a project with its surroundings; and expand its coverage beyond the Atacama Region to strategic areas such as Antofagasta, where a large number of mining and energy projects are concentrated. "It is a development that combines legal science, information technologies, and artificial intelligence to reduce regulatory uncertainty, increase transparency, and strengthen environmental governance in Chile," explains the researcher from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Artificial intelligence constitutes the functional core of the project and is applied in three main dimensions. First, through natural language processing, with deep learning models trained in legal Spanish, key information is extracted and classified from resolutions, regulations, and technical reports, identifying semantic patterns and relevant interpretative criteria. Secondly, the use of machine learning algorithms—supervised and unsupervised—makes it possible to generate regulatory risk indicators and estimate the probability of approval of new projects, facilitating early decision-making by investors and authorities. Finally, AI is integrated with geospatial analysis (GIS), combining textual information with territorial and environmental data to anticipate regulatory conflicts, regulatory overlaps, or possible incompatibilities with protected areas.
The complexity of this challenge led to the creation of an inter-faculty and inter-university team, which brings together specialists in law, engineering, linguistics, and environmental sciences. Participants from UANDES include Silvia Bertazzo, José Ignacio Martínez, Sergio Quijada, Pamela Bustamante, and Vairetti. Representing PUCV are Alan Bronfman, René Venegas, and Magdalena Prieto. "Legal certainty in environmental assessment cannot be approached from a single discipline. It requires a legal perspective, technical capacity in data processing, and territorial and environmental knowledge. That is the richness of this project," emphasizes the academic.
The expected impact is significant, since the platform will make it possible to anticipate regulatory and territorial conflicts, reducing costs and processing delays; improve the transparency and efficiency of administrative processes; and promote sustainable productive development with greater technical and legal certainty. In Vairetti's words, the main contribution is to "contribute to better environmental governance, in which companies reduce risks, the State strengthens its regulatory capacities, and the public has greater guarantees that decisions are made on a solid and transparent basis."