Since the evolution of humans, mankind has made a lot of progress in terms of economic, social and material development. In order to sustain the circle of life, man has exhausted more than half of the natural resources and in doing so has adversely affected the natural environment. Thus, arises the need for Environment Assessment.

Environmental Assessment is the process of assessing and evaluating the impact, both short term and long term; of an initiative or a project on the surrounding environment. The process includes an economic, social and technical evaluation of the project and proposes ways to mitigate or compensate for their impact.

Before proceeding with environment assessment there are several stages of decision making like what is the purpose of the assessment, deciding when it’s necessary, the authority responsible for assessment and a few others. Depending on the category and scope of the project being undertaken, the Design Engineer decides if an assessment is required. Let’s discuss these in brief.

Purpose of Environmental Assessment

● Recognizing all plausible effects on the environment.

● Put forward measures to alleviate unfavorable effects.

● Foretell if there will still be notable adverse effects in spite of implementing mitigating measures.

Deciding when it should be undertaken

The period when the environmental assessment needs to be conducted is very crucial. Usually, it should be conducted at the early stages of the project planning so that the proposer can do a proper evaluation of the proposed plan and can incorporate the mitigation measures to address environmental consequences if any.

The Authority

Organizations responsible for carrying out the assessment are domain experts. These agencies work by establishing a scope of the project, the determining factors and the due date for the assessment. They gather data, conduct reiki and try to isolate the impact zones so as to locate plausible environmental consequences and effective ways to mitigate them.

Environmental Assessments-Benefits

Early identification of environmental effects and their mitigation measures enables the proponent to make better decisions by following ways:

● Reduction of adverse environmental effects.

● Reduction in project cost.

● Harm to the environment is lowered.

● Responsible deployment of natural resources.

Impact of the Environmental Assessment

When the project gets a green signal, the mitigation measures are immediately implemented after carefully incorporating the result of the findings in the plans and the blueprints. A contingency plan is drafted to follow up in order to make sure that the obligatory procedures are enacted and that there are no other implications than the ones already founded.

So far what we have studied give a clear all-round idea about environmental assessment, but another important factor while considering this assessment is to find out what kind of projects actually need Environment Assessment In Consultation with agencies and government authorities, a long list of such projects has been identified. Some of these are:

● Industrial Projects

● Metal Processing Plants

● Chemical Manufacturing Plants

● Power and Natural Gas Plants

● Dams and Water Management Projects

● Food Processing Facilities

● Waste Water Facilities

So one can see that there are many such projects that require an Environmental Assessment, although not all of them need to complete the whole process. The Design Engineer can identify if a project requires assessment and the designated authority decides in terms of planning and execution.