Integrated environmental assessment: an urban perspective

摘要

A broadening of the strategic approach to environmental issues coupled with changes in the mechanisms of environmental governance and management has generated demands for new kinds of environmental knowledge and for new ways of using it. In particular there is now a strong demand for information about the environment to be linked to information about the impacts of human activities so that the unsustainable aspects of economic development can be anticipated and controlled. The scope of environmental assessment has enlarged to provide information that will help a wide range of stakeholders, including business and publics to make decisions, choosing between alternatives on the basis of sound environmental information set in a social and economic context. This paper provides a discussion of these developments and illustrates how integrated environmental assessment of a specific urban environmental problem, the reduction of health impacts of air borne particles, can deliver broad strategic information for participants in the solution.