Multicriteria Environmental Assessment: A Practical Guide

ISBN-13: 9781402020889 / Angielski / Twarda / 2004 / 311 str.

Nolberto Munier

Opis

The purpose of this book is to analyze, with actual examples, different techniques that have been developed to tackle the complex task of making an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of a project. A project may influence the lives of many people, can change the physical environment temporarily or forever, and creates benefits or losses, not only for the people who promoted it, but also for those not related whatsoever with the project. Thus, its assessment is not only a commercial evaluation of gains and losses, but it goes far beyond that, for it also has to appraise: -how people's way of life will be affected; -how significant the alteration produced in the social fabric will be; -what the result will be of using certain renewable and non-renewable resources; -how much the expected economic development will cost in terms of loss of resources sustainability; -how to measure what is not easily measurable: enjoying a sunset, a stroll in a tropical forest, climbing a mountain, etc.; and -how to integrate the technical and environmental aspects of projects with the desires, wishes and needs of the population. Even though, in many cases, the different techniques can be used standalone, this procedure appears to be unsatisfactory, because none of them can give a complete answer to our problem. For that reason this book explains each technique separately, but whenever possible, and through examples, links them in order to obtain the maximum benefit from each one.
This book is subtitled A Practical Guide, precisely because it tries to guide the practitioner in this labyrinth of techniques, by suggesting the best tools to use in each case, complementing this with abundant Internet references that provide a fast way to get more information about specific concepts, and facilitating the examination of actual EIA in many different fields.
Audience: This book will help the practitioner, the student, and the public in general on how best to understand and evaluate the effects of new projects on our environment. Worksheets to prepare an EIA are included.

Spis treści

I: General Background. 1: General Information. 1.1. The purpose of this book. 1.2. Structure. 1.3. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). 1.4. Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). 1.5. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). 1.6. Environmental and Socioeconomic Impact Assessment (ESIA). 1.7. The necessity of developing an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for most projects. 1.8. What is economic development? 1.9. What is sustainability? 1.10. The link between economic development and sustainable environment. 1.11. The carrying capacity of the environment. 1.12. Social, economic and environmental interaction in sustainable development. 1.13. The EIA problem. 1.14. The decision-making process. 1.15. The EIA report. Internet references for Chapter 1. 2: Projects and Impacts. 2.1. defining the objectives of the study. 2.2. Impacts caused by projects. 2.3. Conclusion on impacts. Internet references for Chapter 2. 3: Criteria. 3.1. Criteria, attributes or components. 3.2. Factor Analysis (FA). 3.3. Steps for Environmental Impact Assessment. Internet references for Chapter 3. II: Elements of Environmental Appraisal. 4: Information for EIA. 4.1. Defining the problem. 4.2. Available tools for project appraisal. 4.3. Tools for impact identification. Internet references for Chapter 4. 5: Techniques for Environmental Appraisal. 5.1. Geographic Information System (GIS). 5.2. Contingency Valuation (CV). 5.3. Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA). 5.4. Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA). 5.5. Input-Output analysis (IO). 5.6. Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). 5.7. Multicriteria Analysis (MCA). 5.8. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). 5.9. Mathematical Programming (MP). 5.10. Actual examples of multicriteria analysis. 5.11. Risk Analysis (RA). 5.12. Techniques comparison. 5.13. Strategic Environmental Assessment. Internet references for Chapter 5. III: EIA in the Urban Scenario. 6: EIA and Urbanization. 6.1. People's participation. 6.2. EIA and the city. 6.3. Urban and regional projects. 6.4. The execution of joint projects. 6.5. Sustainable impact. 6.6. Indicators. 6.7. Indicators selection. 6.8. Measuring the quantity of information provided by indicators. 6.9. Monitoring. Internet references for Chapter 6. Appendix: Mathematical Background to Understand the Fundamentals of Modern Techniques for Project Appraisal. A.1. Introduction. A.2. Mathematical foundation of the Analytical Hierarchy Process. A.3. Foundation of Mathematical Programming. A.4. Mathematical foundation of input/output analysis. A.5. Statistical notions of Factor Analysis. A.6. The notion of opportunity cost. A.7. The notion of shadow prices. A.8. The notion of sensitivity analysis. Internet references for Appendix. Cited references on the Internet by industries. Road Map for Environmental Impact Assessment. Flowchart and road map for Environmental Impact Assessment. Glossar