Environmental assessment can be defined as ‘identifying, estimating, and evaluating the environmental impacts of existing and proposed projects, by conducting environmental studies, to mitigate the relevant negative effects prior to making decisions and commitments.’
To put it another way, an environmental assessment is a study required to establish all the impacts be they positive or negative about a particular development project. The environmental assessment does the following:
Establishes the baseline environmental conditions e.g. for habitats, noise levels, water quality etc.,
Identifies possible environmental effects (of the construction work and predicted operations),
Proposes measures to mitigate any adverse effects.
The overall objective is to achieve no net loss of biodiversity or no net environmental impact. This may require compensatory measures such as creating new areas of habitat e.g. woodland, screening the visual impact of a development by means of tree planting and so forth.