Human activity has profound consequences for ecosystems, in most cases negative. Knowing the potential impacts before running a project can go a long way toward both mitigating the negatives and fostering the positives, if any. With this objective in mind, environmental impact studies are compiled and written.
If you want to know more about what an impact on the environment is, what is an environmental impact study and how to make one, keep reading this Green Ecologist article.
Environmental impacts are defined as the effects or consequences that anthropic activity can generate in ecosystems in particular and in the environment in general. Virtually any activity has some kind of effect, from the large mining or agricultural companies that modify vast areas of territory to the hikers who are walking quietly on a trail.
However, not all environmental impacts are the same, as we will see below.
On the one hand, impacts on the environment vary in intensity: depending on the degree of activity, its nature or how they are organized, they can generate a greater or lesser impact. It is not the same to compact the ground with your footsteps than to compact the ground to build a football stadium.
On the other hand, we cannot guarantee that the impacts will be negative in all cases. Thus, we distinguish two types of environmental impacts:
This distinction is not always so clear. A paradigmatic example would be the artificial lagoons in the southeast of Madrid (Spain). The extraction of aggregates in this area was very intense during the second half of the last century, so much so that the level of the water table was exceeded, so that some of the ponds they left were flooded. They are now considered areas of high ecological value, since they are home to a wide variety of flora and fauna and have become resting areas for migratory birds. What in principle was a clear example of overexploitation, over time has become a highly valued site.
On the contrary, the repopulation of forests in areas such as Galicia, which were made with very fast-growing trees (Eucalyptus) but not indigenous, have led to a loss of ecological value in the area.
They are more distinguished classifications of impacts on the environment:
Thus, we have environmental impacts, but in some cases assessing them correctly requires a very great effort. To organize this task, we have the studies and environmental impact statements.
In this other article by Ecologist Verde we will talk more about what is negative and positive environmental impact with examples.
An environmental impact study (in Spain it is known as EIA, or "Environmental Impact Assessment") consists of the evaluation of a project to determine its possible environmental impacts on its surroundings. It is in itself a technical, objective and multidisciplinary study. In many cases this study prior to the project is a legal requirement to carry it out , and it will be the public administration who, based on it, among other requirements, accept it, reject it or decide to modify it.
These are the parts of an environmental impact study that we can generally find, although there may be some less or include others, without prejudice to adding others that are considered necessary:
At the time of do an environmental impact study Big complications tend to arise, especially when the projects that usually require these studies include large works. However, we are going to explain a simple example so that it is understood: a bar near a natural setting.
If you want to read more articles similar to What is an environmental impact study, we recommend that you enter our category of Other environment.