Environmental Impact Assessment- Impacts

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS

·        The terms impact and effort are frequently used interchangeably

·        Some have advocated natural or man induced changes in the bio-geophysical environments as effects and

·        The consequences of these changes as impacts

 Various types of IMPACTS

·        Spatial dimension

·        Temporal dimension

·        Beneficial/ Adverse

·        Reversibility

·        Socio- political dimension

They are being discussed below.

 

Spatial Dimension:

·                  Impacts can occur in the vicinity of a project. Example: odor problem of tannery industries/ plant workers exposed to cement dust

·      Alternatively, impacts can be observed at a considerable distances. Example: acid rain in Scandinavia due to hydrocarbon combustion in UK/ Northern, central Europe.

 Temporal Dimension:

·       Some impacts occur immediately after the project work such as noise level from construction work causing irritation to nearby people

·       Some impacts may occur after a long period of time. Example: accumulation of heavy metals in aquatic organisms from industrial discharges

Beneficial/ Adverse:

Not all impacts are adverse

· Some are beneficial, e.g. employment, community development, flood protection etc.

·        Some are adverse, e.g. loss of habitat, loss of productivity

Reversibility:

Not all impacts are reversible

·      Some impacts are irreversible. Example: loss of agri-land or vegetation for building construction

·        Some are reversible. Example: rise of noise level during construction would return to normal after construction is ceased.

 Socio- Political Dimension:

·     Societies are made up of groups and individuals with differing interest and values. For example: a change in wild life habitat due to some action may be seen by conservationist as ecologically significant impact. Other interest group such as unemployed looking for new jobs may not even recognize it as an impact. Therefore the social groups and individuals assign different values to environmental changes.

·       Also people/ experts conducting EIA may reflect different values than local interest groups.

·     Study teams own perception/ political influence/ lack of knowledge of the casual relation between development activity and environmental/ social change lead to differences between groups.