An environmental impact identification system

• Published in: Journal of environmental management 1992-11, Vol.36 (3), p.167-184
• Main Authors: Julien, Benoît, Fenves, Steven J., Small, Mitchell J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: aggregation; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Applied ecology; Applied sciences; Biological and medical sciences; Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife; environmental impact assessment; environmental impact identification; Exact sciences and technology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Global environmental pollution; impact network; Pollution
• ISSN: 0301-4797; 1095-8630
• DOI: 10.1016/S0301-4797(05)80131-8

The success of an environmental impact assessment depends on the adequate identification of the potential impacts of the project on the environment. This paper presents a method to assist the evaluator in identifying these impacts. The proposed model goes beyond most previous approaches by helping to determine and not only represent the impacts. The environmental impact identification system (EIIS) aggregates the previous environmental evaluations similar to the current problem in order to propose possible impacts. The environmental impact assessments are stored on a computer in the form of impact networks. These impact networks represent the impacts as causal links between trees of activities and environmental elements describing the project and the environment. The evaluator can select and aggregate previous impact networks based on the contextual information of the evaluation problem. The extended impact network resulting from the aggregation contains all the activities, environmental elements and impacts previously considered in the selected evaluations. The identification task is therefore reduced to the modification of the extended impact network to suit the current environmental evaluation.