Cumulative Impact Assessment
Introduction
The purpose of the environmental assessment is to ensure, to the planner, that the development options under consideration are environmentally appropriate and sustainable, and that any environmental consequences are recognized early in the project cycle "Project cycle (engineering)") and taken into account for the project design. It is vitally important that the planner takes into account the set of elements of the environmental system, which allow a holistic analysis of the situation to be evaluated, taking into account the potential and opportunities available.
Evaluation usefulness
Environmental assessment identifies ways to environmentally improve projects and minimize, mitigate, or offset adverse impacts. They alert project designers, executing agencies, and their staff early to the existence of problems, so environmental assessments:
• - They make it possible to deal with environmental problems in a timely and practical manner;
• - Reduce the need to impose limitations on the project, because appropriate steps can be taken in advance or incorporated into the project design; and,.
• - They help avoid costs and delays in implementation caused by unanticipated environmental problems.
Likewise, environmental evaluation allows us to weigh the opportunities for improvement in the quality and balance of a system based on the anthropic factor that is affected positively or negatively but directly.
Environmental assessments also provide a formal mechanism for inter-agency coordination, and to address the concerns of affected groups and local non-governmental organizations.
In addition, they can play a central role in strengthening the environmental capacity of the country, in this way the process carried out in the environmental assessment and environmental evaluations allow the country's potential to be identified not only in ecological terms, but also in relation to the capacity for transformation that the communities or human groups themselves have.
Like economic, financial, institutional and engineering analyses, environmental assessment is part of the preparation of a project, and therefore is the responsibility of the borrower. The environmental assessment is closely linked to other aspects of project preparation, which guarantees that:.
• - Environmental considerations take on due importance during decision-making regarding the selection, location and design of the project; and,.