ABSTRACT
We have discussed in some detail a wide range of types of impacts, reducing them to relatively simple logical processes with a potential for automation as expert systems. Although not all the standard areas of impact assessment have been covered, there has been enough variety to illustrate most of the problems and issues involved when “translating” expert behaviour and judgement into a simple logical process that a non-expert can follow. This can be illustrated by discussing one last area of impact that encompasses most of the issues raised in other areas: water, which really consists of a succession of several impact assessments. Water impact assessment is probably the most difficult, because of the extreme variety of impacts that can affect water, and because of the extreme variety of standards and legislation covering them (see Bourdillon, 1995 for an early list). It can be said that Environmental Impact Assessment is a by-product of the relative cultural sophistication normally associated in a society with a certain degree of development, but concerns with the quality and quantity of water have been central to all societies throughout history, and this makes it probably the most extensively documented – and regulated – area of impact assessment. Also, in terms of the line of argument we are following here, water impact assessment involves really a chain of several areas of impact, each of which can be looked at as we have been doing in previous chapters. These areas can be seen as “modules” which form part of water impact assessment, linking the original source of impacts – the project – to the ultimate impacts on humans or on the natural environment (Figure 10.1).
