NOTE: Dimensions of the Environment

Dimensions of the Environment

The environment can be structured in several ways, including components, scale/space and time. A narrow pollution of environmental components would focus primarily on the biophysical environment e.g the UK department of the environment used the term to include all machine susceptible to pollution, including air, water and soil; flora, fauna and human beings; landscape, urban and rural conservation and the built heritage (DOE 1991). The DOE check list of environmental components is outlined below:

Environmental components

Physical environmental (adapted from DOE 1991)

1.	Air and atmosphere	Air quality
2.	Water resources and water bodies	Water quality and quantity
3.	Soil and geology	Classification risk (contamination erosion)
4.	Flora and fauna	Birds, mammals, fish, vegetation
5.	Human beings	Physical and mental health, well-being
6.	Landscape	Characteristics and quality of landscape
7.	Cultural heritage	Historic, archeological sites
8.	Climate	Temperature, rainfall, wind
9.	Energy socio economic environment	Light, noise, vibration
10.	Economic base-direct	Direct employment: labour market characteristic
11.	Economic base-indirect	Non-basic and services employment; labour supply and demand.
12.	Demography Housing	Population structure and demand
13.	Local services	Supply and demand of services: Health, education, police.
14.	Socio-cultural	Lifestyles, quality of life, social problems (crime) community stress, conflict.

The environment has important economic and socio-cultural dimensions. This wide definition is more in tune with an Australian definition, “for the purpose of EIA, the meaning of environment incorporates physical, biological, cultural, economic and social factors’ (ANZECC 1991).

The environment can be analysed at various scales. Many of the spatial impacts of projects affect the local environment, although the nature of ‘local’ may vary according to the aspect of environment under consideration and to the stage in a project’s life. However some impacts are more than local. Traffic noise, may be a local issue, but changes in traffic flows caused by a project may have a regional impact, and the associated CO₂ pollution contributes to the global green house problem. The environment also has a time dimension, baseline data on the state of the environment are needed at the time a project is being considered.