Environmental Management: Principles and practice

Integrated environmental management
Much environmental management and planning has been reactive, narrow in focus,
piecemeal and poorly co-ordinated. Integrated approaches have been explored to try
to counter these problems, and to ensure that environmental management yields
socioeconomic benefits. Environmental problems cross political border and
boundaries between air, water and land; they also involve different disciplines and
actors, so can be difficult to deal with without integrated environmental management.
There has been considerable interest in integrated environmental management
in recent years, from industry, academics, politicians and professional planners
(Müeller and Ahmad, 1982; Cairns and Crawford, 1991; O’Callaghan, 1996).
However, it has been difficult to put into practice, and there is lack of agreement as
to what exactly it is (Barrett, 1994; Margerum and Born, 1995). Terminology is a
little vague; for those involved in corporate environmental management ‘integrated’
means the development of an environmental management system that combines
health, safety and environmental quality issues. Alternatively, the Dutch
government, concerned with the environmental management of the North Sea,
would see ‘integrated’ as implying the assessment of all relevant environmental
factors: pollution, fisheries, erosion, etc., and resolving issues in an integrated
way (Wolters, 1994).
As with a number of other environmental management approaches, there is a
risk that academics and professionals become too involved and forget that it is a
means to an end: achieving sustainable development; better resource use for the
general good; reduction of environmental problems, and so on (Born and Sonzogni,
1995). In spite of these problems, improvements may soon make it possible to adopt
effective integrated environmental management (Rabe, 1996).
The roots of integrated environmental management lie in integrated area
development approaches and comprehensive regional planning and management,
including comprehensive river basin planning and management. There are also
similarities shared with areas of management science, such as total quality
management. The key elements of integrated environmental management are,
according to Born and Sonzogni (1995:168):
♦
co-ordinated control, direction, or influence of all human activities in a defined
environmental system (such as a river basin or a watershed) to achieve and
balance the broadest possible range of long- and shorter-term objectives;
♦
a process of formulating and implementing a course of action involving human

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and natural resources in an ecosystem, taking into account the social, political,
economic and institutional factors operating within the ecosystem in order to
achieve specific societal objectives;
♦
an inclusive approach that takes into account the scope and scale of
environmental and human issues and their interconnections. A strategic and
interactive process is used to identify key elements and goals which need
attention.