Environmental Impact Assessment

Environmental Impact Assessment

    In the present world, the flourishing urbanization and proliferating industrialization developed the symbiotic relationship between each other. Therefore, no one can imagine urbanization without industrialization and industrialization without urbanization. But these two processes are very fast and going on without taking care of environment which subsequently led to an adverse impact on the environment and this adverse impact on environment is much higher than the development taking place. However, the deteriorating environment enthralls the attention of many environmental researchers and other specialists around the world to take care of environment on the course of spreading Industrial Township. And like this, the idea of Environmental Impact Assessment has been developed.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a well planned process to predict the environmental consequences of Industrial Township which is result of human activities and to suggest appropriate measures in order to reduce adverse effects and also to augment positive effects. Therefore, the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) defines an EIA is “the process of identifying, predicting, evaluating, and mitigating the biophysical, social, and other relevant effects of development proposals prior to major decisions being taken and commitments made.” The term and concept - EIA first coined and exercised in USA in the year 1969. Therefore, it is relatively new decision making process for prediction of any environmental consequences of any development project.

The process of development for human beings is inevitable and if it would be going on in the same fashion, then the life of human beings itself become measurable, or in other words, development is requisite for human beings, at the same time it is also necessary to take proper care of environment. Research says – the community at large is always at a loss in terms of deterioration of living environment which is accompanies by industrial townships. In this situation, the EIA procures a rational and ethical approach for sustainable development. However, it is more scientific process because it not only tells the past, present and the future consequences of going on development, but also predicts the future events which likely to change due to some reasons. Therefore, before starting any project either big or small EIA has to be applied.

There are following objectives of EIA viz

• To predict the impact of any development project on respective environment




• Derive solutions to reduce adverse impacts




• Modify the project in order to suit concerning environment




• Provide the predictions and options to the decision-makers




• To provide information about the merits and use of EIA to public in order to make them environment sensitive people




• Make possible public participation for the exercise of EIA

The above discussion suggests that the term EIA consists of many key elements such as comprehensive study and research, report making, analysis, screening, decision, and follow up. However, due to lack of - proper involvement of government, knowledge, technology, interests etc infers that the process reflects narrowly focused. Consequently, the EIA is still in nascent stage. Therefore, the time already came to wake up the world and convince it to disseminate the process properly and universally.