Environmental Management: Principles and practice

Computers and expert systems
Impact assessment by computer
There have been attempts to computerize impact identification and assessment (see
Guariso and Page, 1994; Benoît, 1995:421–426). Canter (1996:45) has argued that,
as impact assessment gets more complex and laborious, in order to be more holistic
and adaptive, computerization becomes more important. Computer techniques have
also been used for interpreting impacts (Baumwerd-Ahlmann et al., 1991). The
development of better microcomputers and software has made it possible to run
impact assessments, expert systems, environmental information systems, and models.
There has been interest in integrating EIA, monitoring and GIS through computer
use, and in applying computing to SIA (Leistritz et al., 1995). Nevertheless, progress

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has still been limited by lack of user-friendly programs, and by the relatively low
number of impact assessors who are skilled with computers (Guariso and Page, 1994).
The application of computing should be transparent, to reduce the risk of
accidental or deliberate errors, unauthorized disclosure, etc. Accidents like the
Chernobyl disaster have prompted a number of countries to co-operate and develop
joint rapid impact assessment and data exchange systems. These are vital for coping
with rapidly developing transboundary problems, like airborne pollution. The
European Community has gone partway to developing such a system for radioactive
fallout by establishing the EC Urgent Radiological Information Exchange (ECURIE)
in 1987.
Expert systems
The expert systems (or ‘knowledge-based systems’) can be valuable once perfected,
as an aid (not replacement) for skilled assessors. However, they may take a lot of
research and time to develop (Loehle and Osteen, 1990; Geraghty, 1992; 1993).
They are particularly useful when there is a shortage of expertise to conduct
assessment and may have potential for improving public involvement (Schibuola
and Byer, 1991). They are also used for environmental planning (Wright et al.,
1993; Tucker and Richardson, 1995), eco-audit and environmental management
(Benoît and Podesto, 1995), and to apply EIA to regional planning (Burde et al.,
1994). The approach involves developing a computer program that stores a body
of knowledge and with it performs tasks usually done by a human expert—for
example, impact or risk assessment. These systems draw on heuristic (rule-of-
thumb) reasoning to act as ‘advisors’, provide support for decision making, or aid
data management.
Gray and Stokoe (1988) reviewed the potential and limitations of expert systems
for impact assessment and environmental management, one of their hopes being that
they could help achieve consistent quality of assessments. Mercer (1995), recognizing
that impact assessment increasingly uses qualitative methods of assessment, tried to
develop an expert system capable of coping with this.