Iranian Journal of Environmental Health, Science and Engineering Iranian Association of Environmental Health (IAEH) ISSN: 1735-1979 Vol. 4, Num. 2, 2007, pp. 121-126

Iranian Journal of Environmental Health Science & Engineering,Vol.
4, No. 2, 2007, pp. 121-126
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS ASSESSMENT OF INDUSTRIAL ESTATE PROVIDING
WITH MANAGERIAL PROCESS
*1J. Nouri, 1A. H. Mahvi, 1M. Younesian, 2R. Nabizadeh, 2I. Hashemi
 1Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Public Health and Center for Environmental
  Research, Medical Sciences/University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

  2Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Medical Sciences/University
  of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
*Corresponding author-Email: jnouri@tums.ac.ir
Tel: +98 21 8895 4914, Fax: +98 21 8898 9133
 Received 20 January 2007; revised 23 February 2007; accepted 30 March 2007
Code Number: se07018
ABSTRACT
 At this study, an environmental impact assessment establishment of Shahzand
  Industrial Estate in Arak at the central part of Iran was investigated. After
  collection of data and analysis of the findings, the
  positive and negative impacts resulted from establishment of the industrial
  estate were investigated,
  using the Leopold Matrix and Scaling checklist methods providing the managerial
  solutions in order to
  minimize the environmental harmful impacts. The existing environmental situation
  was investigated
  and then environmental impact alternatives were determined. This was done regarding
  to the amount
  and kind of predicted pollutions for industrial estate at the construction
  and operational phases. The
  environmental impact assessment of the investigated estate was studied at the
  three terms of immediate,
  direct and indirect impacts at the short, medium and long term. By expanding
  of Leopold Matrix to four
  parted matrix, in addition to amount, importance and extend of the impacts,
  the remaining duration of
  impact in the environment were assessed as a separate factor in environmental
  impact assessment. The
  results of the study with two alternatives, such as; No (performance of the
  project with no concern for
  environmental issue) and as yes (performance of the project with application
  of the environmental
  harmful impacts) were studied in construction and operation phases. The impact
  assessment of "NO"  property resulted (-1065), therefore the execution
  of project was rejected, but after reducing the harmful impact performance
  which were resulted (+1095) has been accepted. Therefore, method of reducing
  harmful environmental impacts along with environmental management programs
  introduced and
accepted in this study.
 Key word: Industrial estates, environmental impact assessment, four parted matrix, managerial trend
INTRODUCTION 
"The existence of balance, coordination 
  and required order among natural elements, is one 
  of the key factors in the ecosystem. If this 
  balance is disturbed under certain circumstances, it 
  will damage the structure of living existences and 
  more specifically the human beings. Since a half 
  century ago , factors such as  important economical 
  and industrial activities, advance technologies 
  together with growing population and lack of 
  concordance among world's different countries to take 
  optimal advantages of the existing natural resources 
  have disturbed the balance in the ecosystem. As a result, 
  man has caused many problems such as high death tolls and arduous diseases
  due to the different pollutions in water, air, land, sound,
  temperature, etc and factors such as erosion, desert, 
  expansion, floods, extinction of plant and animal species, 
  ozone layer destruction, global warming,  sea level 
  rise and green house gases increase (Nouri and Neshat, 1984; Canter, 2004). 
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) 
  is to recognize and assess systematic consequences 
  of projects and programs on elements like physico- chemical, biological, cultural, economical and 
  social phenomena in the environment; in other words 
  it is a way or method to determine the direction 
  or predication and assessment of environmental impacts of activities on the environmental and the health of ecosystem affecting human lives 
(Hunt and Catherine, 1995; Masoud, 2005). At the 
first phase, the process of environmental impact assessment helps to serve a proper 
programming and stable development and then to found a 
sound basis for the existing developmental projects. 
In developmet planning and controlling pollution 
and maintaining the natural resources and in general 
to render environmental sound managerial trends (IECCP, 
2005).
At present, due to the immethodical 
  development of industries in developing countries including 
  Iran, environmental attitudes to protect the 
  environment and its natural resources for the  next 
  generation are of great importance and this has captured 
  the concerning officials' attention. To perform so, 
  in the last two decades, the government has tried 
  to establish industrial estates in different parts of 
  the country to organize the industrial activities 
  and create a sound competitive market and also to control the environmental pollution. The 
  project of establishmeant of industrial estate in 
  Shahzand region with the purpose of organizing industries 
  in the region and creating new job openings or markets to purchase and selling commodities 
  and fostering economical activities and also 
  controlling the pollution resulting from the sporadic 
  industrial activities has received the attention of the 
  local officials (UNEP, 1989). The preliminaries of 
  this project including assessing the project potentialities, local consultation lands 
  ownership located in the south of Shahzand power plant 
  region and in the road of Ghadamga, at a distance of 
  8 km from Shahzand with an area of 5,059,846 
  km2 with surveying are being performed.
Materials and Methods 
The statistics and gathered data plus 
  maps received from the relevant centers have been 
  the necessary instruments to conduct the present research. The data and required information about surface and groundwater, air, etc. have 
been gathered from different centers in some 
cases. The researchers have tried to have sampling 
and assessment of required variables. The 
performed studied was conducted in Arak and Shahzand 
in 2006. To recognize physico-chemical factor, investigation and biological, economical, social 
and cultural elements are important and essential elements to predict the environmental impacts 
of the project on the concerning surroundings. To understand and recognize the existing situation 
of the region, all of the conditions in the 
environment including physico-chemical, biological, social 
and cultural factors together with their relevance 
to the present research have been investigated. 
To assess the environmental impacts of 
  Industrial Estate of Shahzand, the method of Leopold 
  matrix along with a descriptive method have been 
  used. By expanding of Leopold matrix to fourparted matrix, in addition to amount, importance 
  and extent of the impacts, the remaining duration 
  of impacts in the environment were assessed as a separate factor in EIA. In this method, score 
  5 indicates very high positive impact and score 1 indicates little and non important impact; 
  besides, score -5 indicates very high negative impact and 
  -1 indicates very low negative impact (Table 1). Moreover, in this study, extended positive 
  and negative impacts together with their 
  importance were ranged and classified. Score 1 
  (immediate impacts) represents the impacts affecting 
  the industrial estate, Score 2 represents the 
  region located at the distance of  5  km from the  
  Industrial Estate, and score  3 indicates those region 
  located at the distance of  30 km from the  Industrial 
  Estate (Table 2). Furthermore, in this study, to score 
  and assess the duration of the impacts in the environment through approximation for this 
  purpose, according to Table 3, the score 1 indicates 
  short term impacts, the score 2 represents medium 
  term impacts and  finally the score 3 indicates long 
  term impacts (Table 3). 
In order to assess the quantitative amounts of 
the impacts in the environment, plan of the quantitative 
 impacts on the environmental components is illustrated in Fig. 1. As it is indicated in order 
to assess the quantitative rates of the impacts in 
the environment's components, the numerical value of three indices of an impact is multiplied by 
one another and the result of which can vary from +45 to -45 according to the equation 1: The impact index = Amount of impacts 
× Duration of impacts × Importance of impacts            (1)

The alternatives of assessment:
The alternative"NO" or (rejection of the 
  project performance).
The alternative No (rejection of the 
  performance of the project) was studied and assessed 
  in construction and operational phases of 
  Shahzand Industrial Estate. According to the negative 
  results of the execution of the project with environmental harmful impacts, it was rejected.
The alternatives"Yes" or (acceptance of 
  the project performance) 
This was done for Shahzand Industrial Estate 
  at the construction and operational phases with regard to reducing environmental impacts 
  along with environmental management programs and because of the positive results of the 
  project execution it was accepted.
RESULTS 
The results of this study are assessed 
  according to the information and data gathered from 
  the region and also the predicted activities at 
  the construction and operational phases and 
  execution of the project there of; then its impacts in 
  the environment were investigated in terms of the amount of the impacts, the duration of the 
  impacts and the attend of the impacts. According to 
  the conducted studies in the mentioned region regarding the performance of the project and 
its environmental impacts, the prediction of 
potential environmental impacts of the execution 
of Shahzand Industrial Estate project during its construction and operational phases on 
physicochemical, biological, economical and social 
factors in the environment were performed.The assessment of the environmental impacts 
was conducted, the results of which were (-77) for the alternative "No" at the construction phase and 
(-988) at operational phase. Furthermore, through reducing harmful environmental impacts 
and reducing pollutions for the alternative of the performance of the project, the average 
impacts at the construction and operational phases 
were 264 and 829, respectively. The results are 
depicted in Table 4 and Figs. 2, 3, 4. 
Discussion  
According to the results and outcomes of 
  the present study concerning the establishment of Shahzand Industrial Estate with regard to the 
  two alternatives (Yes and No), the execution of 
  the project, without the method of minimizing the environmental harmful 
  impacts, will be rejected since the impact assessment of "No" 
  alternative on the environment at the construction 
  phase were (-77) and  (-988) at the operational 
  phase. How ever, through the method of reducing 
  the environmental harmful impacts, the results at 
  the construction and operational phases were 264 
  and 829, respectively, resulting in the performance 
  of the project. Industrial development could be defined as providing the cornerstone for 
  industrial development and social stability with 
  minimizing the environmental harmful impacts. The requirement to achieve such a goal is to 
  merge the environmental considerations with 
  different levels of policy making and administrating 
  levels (Canter, 2004). 
The following items, with regard to the 
  conditional of the industrial Estate, are provided as 
  some suggestions for managerial trends:
- To apply the methods of preventing, 
  reducing and controlling the environmental harmful impacts. 
- To provide some guidelines for the 
  application of technical methods to reduce the environmental harmful impacts at 
  the construction phase. 
- To provide some technical and scientific 
methods for the proper sewages to prevent the 
local waters from being polluted. 
- To install filtering apparatus in polluting  
  industries to decrease or omit the pollutants. 
- To apply technical and scientific methods 
  for the proper removal of waste materials, 
  hygienic and industrial waste waters to prevent 
  from polluting the earth. 
- To use modern equipments, 
  scientific methodologies and workers, physical examinations so as to minimize the 
  relevant hazard and reduce sound pollution. 
- While activity scientific and technical       
  methods safety procedures and in service training courses for workers to reduce 
  the number of accidents. 
- To perform environmental programs 
  and projects by the Department of  the Environment 
  to control the environment through continual measuring of  the pollutants in different places.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
The authors would like to thank and 
  appreciate the financial support of the Center for Environmental Research, Medical 
  Sciences/University of Tehran  throughout the study.
REFERENCES 

  
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© 2007 Tehran University of Medical Sciences Publications

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