EIA- Impact of Human Activities and Policies on Environment

The Environmental Impact Assessment, - hereinafter EIA - is one of the preventive instruments of environmental management that allows environmental policies to be met and that are incorporated, early in the process of development and decision making. Therefore, it evaluates and corrects human actions and avoids, mitigates, or compensates for any negative environmental impacts.

The EIA adopts a long-term approach and guarantees a complete and integrated vision of the meaning of human actions on the environment.

The general objective of the EIA is to frame human activities in the environmental policy that supports sustainable development.

In many cases, through the EIA, new technology is introduced into the environment, which could solve problems of deterioration. However, the evaluation and consultation process must examine the implications not only of the project but also of the environmental risks derived from the technology itself.

The EIA Project analyzes the particularities of the action in all its phases (design, construction, operation, and abandonment) and proposes corrective measures to eliminate, minimize or compensate for alterations, which imply damage to the environment, in a preventive manner.

It is a significant alteration of the environment of positive or negative character; When they are direct they involve partial or total loss of a resource or deterioration of an environmental variable (polluting waters, clearing forests, etc.); When they are indirect, they induce and generate other risks on the environment (for example, floods).

The impacts can be manifested: in a small area but with intense alteration; in large areas even if they are of low individual magnitude; positively and negatively, directly and indirectly, cumulatively and inducing other changes/risks.

The preventive approach consists of identifying and evaluating environmental impacts before they occur; for this, there are important steps to consider in the evaluation, such as:

1. Define exactly what should be excluded because it is not environmentally significant. Also called "screening" or "screening".
2. Define the scope that determines the key points that are necessary to examine in the evaluation. Also called "scoping".
3. Use the particular methods in each case, such as the analysis of scenarios, environmental standards of a preventive nature, and the use of integrating methodologies.
4. Define the information and participation needs of citizens.

An environmental impact assessment process is not in itself an instrument of decision but generates an orderly, coherent and reproducible set of antecedents that allow the promoter of a project, the competent authority, and the citizenry, in each case, to make informed and accurate decisions. All this is possible when an Environmental Impact Study is presented, and the respective authority submits it to a participatory review process to qualify the quality of the analysis.

It is important to highlight the preventive nature of the process since it guides decision-making in the stages prior to the execution of the action in question. In this sense, the environmental impact assessment process is always developed prior to the planned action.

The environmental impact assessment allows comparing existing environmental situations with those that would arise as a result of the development of a particular action. The comparison serves to identify both the positive impacts and the environmental benefits that arise from carrying out the project that is being evaluated, as well as those of a negative nature that must be managed to avoid environmental degradation. The most significant thing is that the measures that ensure the protection of the environment and make the action viable are incorporated; if this is not possible, the action must not be executed.

What is the price of an Environmental Impact Study?

The establishment of the cost and subsequent final price of the Environmental Impact Study is usually done internally depending on the days and resources involved in the preparation of the planning, fieldwork, number of professional specialties involved and subsequent cabinet work.

Thus, even if the project or plan has a great magnitude or is expected from it, we understand that the price of the Environmental Impact Study must be independent of it and must be subject only to objective factors intrinsic to the nature of the project or plan and of the environment that will support it instead of a percentage of the investment or the amortization plan or expected benefits. The factors that, in our opinion, define the final cost of an Environmental Impact Study are the following:

1. The first element that decides the price of a project or plan submitted to Environmental Impact Assessment is obviously the type of project or plan. Thus, the type of project will determine the factors of the environment to be studied with greater rigor, since economic-technical efforts must be focused on evaluating the factors of the environment that can really be affected.

2. Regardless of the distance of the project to the headquarters of the environmental consulting team that prepares the Environmental Impact Study, the project situation, understood as the set of values of the environment present in the area, also defines the cost of the Environmental Study, being equal or more determinant than the typology of the project.

3. By period of study, we are not referring to the time of year, but to the period of time that will be necessary to properly evaluate the factor to be studied, such as the need to conduct Annual Animal Studies in projects that involve a greater impact on the same, as wind farms that in the majority of the occasions require the elaboration of a study in different seasons of the year.

4. The extension of the project also defines the price of an Environmental Impact Study, since the field analysis of a greater extension of territory translates into a greater number of field hours; For example, it is not the same to carry out the environmental impact study of a small farm of a few square meters than a solar plant of several hundred hectares.

5. Regarding the quality of the Environmental Impact Study that we offer, although it would be a determining factor to hire an environmental consultant or another, we can say that, unfortunately (or luckily for some), the cost of the Impact Study Environmental is sometimes not proportional to the quality. Since experience tells us that we can find environmental consultants in the market that offer Environmental Impact Studies at a good price and high quality and, on the contrary, we find "professionals" that due to lack of knowledge or due to malpractice, they offer low-quality Environmental Impact.

6. The experience of the Environmental Consultant that prepares the Environmental Impact Study and the number of own professional specialties involved, are also determining factors in the price, since this experience and internationalization of the specialization translate into speed of execution and optimization of resources and, to its time, in a cost reduction.

7. Last, and not least, is the degree of definition of the project or plan that is intended to be evaluated; Thus, the cost of an Environmental Impact Study of a project in the definition or draft phase can increase considerably, since the research and development work that the environmental consultant must carry out in order to correctly evaluate the project will involve a greater effort and, therefore, a higher cost. The inherent risk of the dreaded project modifications is included here.

The Geotechnical Studies A Way to Achieve the Constructive Security of Engineering Projects.

Modern construction is a complex investment-production process, including: architectural and town-planning solutions, engineering and survey works, design and construction, construction and installation works, operation of structures, taking into account current and major repairs.

Construction in large cities can no longer be imagined without the erection of unique buildings and structures that differ from ordinary buildings with high altitude, large dimensions in terms of, developed underground space, and significant loads on the grounds of the basement.

The construction of foundations and the preparation of their foundations, in these cases, is in many respects the determining factor for the safe construction and further operation of buildings and structures. At the same time, it becomes extremely topical to obtain reliable information about the state and properties of the natural and natural-techno genic environment that precede the design of construction sites. Such information can be obtained before the construction begins when performing engineering surveys.

The task of Geotechnical Engineering Calgary and geotechnical surveys is to provide a comprehensive study of the engineering and geological conditions of the area (site, plot, and route) of the proposed construction, including relief, geological structure, conditions of built-up areas, etc., and, on this basis, forecasting the interaction of the projected facilities with the ground base.

In turn, engineering surveys are a branch of engineering geology, which, in turn, is inextricably linked to the fundamental sections of geological science - crystallography, mineralogy, petrology, hydrogeology, permafrost, soil science, historical geology, structural geology, geotectonic and geophysics and uses the achievements of other natural sciences.

To date, there has been a common structure of engineering and geological knowledge, which includes: soil science (petrology), geodynamics, regional geology, general geology, geology (special geologyengineering).

Geological engineering surveys are carried out to assess geological conditions of the construction area, build an engineering geological model with the purpose of making constructive and space-planning decisions, choosing the types of foundations, the method of producing zero-cycle works, constructing forecasts of changes in the natural environment and assessing the risks associated with construction activities of a person, determining the feasibility of developing measures for the protection of territory and structures.

Geotechnical engineering Calgary surveys are carried out for individual buildings and facilities on sites with the studied engineering and geological conditions, based on the results of previously completed engineering and geological surveys, with a view to constructing a computational geotechnical model for the interaction of buildings and structures with the geological environment.

Thus, it can be considered that geological Engineering and Geotechnical Surveys are the basis for engineering surveys in which knowledge of the organization of the process of obtaining geological and geotechnical information necessary and sufficient for the design, construction and operation of buildings, structures and engineering objects is systematized and generalized protection.

Each of the types of engineering surveys is important for the design, construction, operation and even (if necessary) liquidation of buildings and structures, but the importance of engineering and geological work in the overall complex of the five basic and six special types of research seems preferable and is decisive.