Environmental Impact Assessment
575.437

Course Description
This course examines principles, procedures, methods, and applications of environmental impact assessment. The goal of the course is to promote an understanding of how environmental impact assessment is conducted and used as a valuable tool in the engineering project management decision-making process. Topics include: overview of environmental impact assessment; selection of scientific, engineering, and socioeconomic factors in environmental impact assessment; identification of quantitative and qualitative environmental evaluation criteria; application of traditional and other techniques for assessing impacts of predicted changes in environmental quality; approaches for identifying, measuring, predicting, and mitigating environmental impacts; modeling techniques employed in environmental impact assessment; environmental standards and the environmental impact assessment process; and methodologies for incorporating environmental impact assessment into management decision-making. Students learn to prepare an environmental impact assessment, review and critically analyze an environmental impact statement, use mathematical models for environmental impact prediction, and apply environmental impact assessment as a tool in management decision-making. Case studies of environmental impact assessment for several types of engineering projects are employed.

Syllabus

1. Conceptual foundations of environmental impact assessment
2. Scientific and legal basis for environmental impact assessment
3. The environmental impact assessment process
4. Current issues associated with the environmental impact assessment process
5. Methodologies for assessing environmental impacts
6. Mid-Term Exam
7. Terrestial impact assessment
8. Aquatic impact assessment
9. Air quality impact assessment
10. Socioeconomic impact assessment
11. Mitigation of environmental impacts
12. Environmental impact assessment and the decision making process
13. Class project reports (case studies)
14. Final Exam

Instructor
Craig Toussaint is President and CEO of Toussaint Consulting Associates, a company dedicated to providing scientific and management expertise to government and private sector clients. Over a twenty-five year career, Dr. Toussaint has served as a technical expert and environmental program manager with the U.S. Department of Energy, Vice President and Deputy Operations Manager with Science Applications International Corp., and Principal at Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc. He holds the following degrees: B.S. in biology, M.S. in environmental science, M.B.A. in management, and Ph.D. in civil engineering and environmental science. Dr. Toussaint's dissertation was in the area of environmental impact assessment. He is currently serving as a member of the U.S. Department of Defense Restoration Advisory Board at Fort Detrick.
E-mail the instructor.

Computer Lab Requirements
No specific computer requirements are necessary for this course.

Textbook
TBA

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Environmental Engineering and Science

updated May 1999