AN ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT

An Environmental Impact Assessment

An Environmental Impact Assessment

Environmental Assessment (EA), which is a term frequently used interchangeably with the terms Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), refers to the process of assessing the environmental effects of proposed initiatives prior to implementation. The purpose of an EA is to prevent or minimize harm to the environment by evaluating the impact of new initiatives on the environment and ensuring that environmental implications are explicitly expressed and incorporated into decision making prior to the approval process. In principle, environmental assessment can be undertaken: 1) for individual projects such as power plants, highways, or dams (EIA), which may require national, state, and sometimes even local assessment reports and often has consequences on regulations and requirements for the businesses involved in building the project; or 2) environmental assessment can take place for more comprehensive plans, programs, or policies (Strategic Environmental Assessment), such as fuel-efficiency standards for motor vehicles or environmental building codes.

Purpose and Objectives

The primary purpose of EIA is to facilitate the consideration of the environment in planning and development decision making and, ultimately, to make it possible to arrive at decisions and subsequent actions that are more environmentally sound. The specific objectives of EIA can be separated into output objectives and outcome objectives. The output objectives of EIA are the immediate, short-term objectives or returns of applying EIA and include

Improvements to the environmental design of the proposed developments;

Explicit integration of environmental factors in decisions about development actions;

An opportunity to anticipate, avoid, minimize, or offset potentially adverse environmental impacts before a development becomes a reality; and

Provisions for public debate about a proposed development action.

The outcome objectives of EIA are longer term and the product of consistent and rigorous EIA application. They include

Protecting the productivity and capacity of human and natural systems and ecological functions,

Facilitating learning and environmental education, and

Promoting sustainable development.

Introduction

Several undertakings have been made for the objective of improving and promotion horticultural plant production and at the same time improving the current attempts that have been undertaken, replacing them with old and primitive methods of plant production. Growing plants in containers is a unique production system when compared to growing plants in soil. Container plants are usually grown in soil-less substrates containing primarily organic and inert components such as sphagnum peat moss, pine bark, sand, and perlite or composts containing yard wastes, animal wastes or kitchen wastes. Soil-less container substrates have been developed through engineering and testing ratios of components so that optimum air and water characteristics produce rapid growth of crops. However, soil-less potting substrates are generally considered to contain deficient nutrient content for plant production without supplementing with fertilizers. Substrates containing composts may provide adequate content of some nutrients for plant growth while other nutrients are usually supplemented. Therefore, nutrients essential for plant growth are routinely incorporated, surface applied or supplied in irrigation to soil-less potting substrates. In contrast to soils, organic and inert potting components have very limited cation exchange and retention characteristics ...