مهندسی محیط زیست

What is environmental assessment?

In general, environmental assessment is a process to predict the environmental effects of proposed initiatives before they are carried out.

An environmental assessment:

• identifies possible environmental effects
• proposes measures to mitigate adverse effects
• predicts whether there will be significant adverse environmental effects, even after the mitigation is implemented

Other environmental studies are often confused with environmental assessment.

Environmental assessments are not …

Environmental site assessments that are used to identify the nature and extent of contaminants on a specific site.

Environmental audits that are used to evaluate the environmental management and regulatory compliance of a specific operation.

What is the purpose of environmental assessment?

There are two main purposes of environmental assessment:

• minimize or avoid adverse environmental effects before they occur
• incorporate environmental factors into decision making