Environmental Impact (Wit Transactions on Ecology and the Environment)

Containing papers for the first International Conference on Environmental Impact and Development organized by the Wessex Institute of Technology, Environmental Impact fills the need for inter-disciplinary coverage of the most serious problems that affect sustainable development. The basic premise is that development projects need to consider the most pressing issues related to environmental impacts in order to provide complete solutions. The current emphasis on sustainable development is a consequence of a general awareness of the various environmental problems that result from our modern society. This has led to the need to assess the impact of economic investments on the environment. Investment assessment and environmental economics need to be discussed in an integrated way, in accordance with the principles of sustainability, considering the social and environmental aspects of new investments, as well as possible environmental damage, including the destruction of natural resources and larger releases of waste and pollution into the environment. The book covers such topic as: Environmental policies and planning; Environmental assessments; Cost benefit analysis; Risk analysis; Natural resources management; Rehabilitation assessment; Social issues and stakeholders participation; Decision support systems; Remediation costs; Environmental Toxicology; Air, water, and soil contamination; Ecosystems health; Environmental health risk; Biodegradation and bioremediation; Ecotoxicity of emerging chemicals; Petroleum contamination; Bioaccumulation and biomonitoring; Brownfields rehabilitation and development; Monitoring of brownfields.