Researchers from the Universidad de los Andes and the 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 of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Carla Vairettileads 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 project FONDEF, achieving first place in the metropolitan evaluation with a score of 4.82 out of 5. And it led to the formation of an inter-faculty and inter-university team, which brings together specialists in law, engineering, linguistics and environmental sciences. From the UANDES participates Silvia Bertazzo, José Ignacio Martínez, Sergio Quijada, Pamela Bustamante and the Carla Vairetti. On the part of the PUCV, the following are added Alan Bronfman, René Venegas and the Magdalena Prieto.
The purpose is to 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, heterogeneous 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 Carla.
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. of the Faculty 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), crossing 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. From the UANDES participates Silvia Bertazzo, José Ignacio Martínez, Sergio QuijadaPamela Bustamante and Vairetti. On behalf of PUCV, 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".