| UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN ENVIRONMENT | |
| THE FOUR LAYERS | AN EXAMPLE |
| Basic Ecological Conditions | The basic ecological condition may be that the wastes from a factory are polluting a river. |
| Environmental Health Conditions | The environmental health conditions are that the river supplies water to a local town so that local drinking water is poisoned. |
| Social Conditions | The social conditions are that people are becoming ill from drinking the poisoned water; and, this situation is exacerbated by the lack and consequence expense of medical treatment. |
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Political Conditions (in terms of how social conditions influence people's political views and actions) |
The political conditions are that local political groups are becoming active, demanding not only that the factory processes its wastes properly but also that medical facilities in the town be improved and made available to everyone. |
15.1.4 EIA IS A MANAGEMENT TOOL
EIA not only assesses the environmental impacts of human activities (sometimes called projects) but also it is a means to a more efficient management of them. There are four reasons for this.
What is a Project? A project describes a human activity which uses existing resources to achieve specific objectives. For instance logging is a project, the resource being the forest and the objective the production of logs.
EIA provides information to decision-makers
So that at every stage in the management of human activities and projects, good design, good management and good social responsibility is possible. Thus, approached properly, EIA gives direction, and it saves time and direct costs for project development and management. But more importantly, it reduces the environmental costs of a project to society as a whole, that may, in the end, save an oil company from a great deal of political opposition.
EIA allows managers to anticipate the adverse enivrionmental impacts of projects
Thus, from the beginning, enabling the design of projects that avoid, mitigate or compensate for these impacts. In other words, EIA is a precautionary process. And in this respect, it is worth remembering that EIA methodology developed out of a desire by engineers to anticipate the expensive physical environmental impacts of engineering project (for instance the subsequent maintenance costs of badly designed road through mountainous regions) and thus to save future expenditure.
