Environmental Impact Assessment Comparative Study Case study: United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Egypt

Abstract

Since the dawn of civilization, the environment was not threatened by human activities. However, with the rise of the industrial revolution and the spread of industrial activities, many environmentally related problems appeared with form of air, water and land pollution.

Recently, this pollution reached unprecedented, dangerous and more complex levels. Leading among the major environmental problems are:

- The Ozone hole which allows the cosmic and ultra violet rays to penetrate our atmosphere causing skin cancers and other diseases;

The rise in earth temperature which affects the snow melting in the northern and southern poles and subsequently increases sea and ocean levels causing the flooding of many coastal cities and shores in the world;

- Acid rain falling on many heavily polluted chemical industrial zones in the more developed countries; and many others...

Many developed countries, and specially the United States of America, have sensed the danger of these problems on the environment and welfare of its societies. As the first step they tried to develop methods that enables them to assess the impacts of existing projects on the environment or predict the effects of feature projects.