Multi-Criteria Environmental Impact Assessment of Alternative Irrigation Networks with an Adopted Matrix-Based Method.

Environmental impact assessments (EIA) identify the type, importance, and severity of the environmental consequences of human activities. This study performs an EIA of the Shahriar dam irrigation project in Iran. Physical, biological, and social-economic-cultural criteria and parameters are evaluated in the short and long terms with the Leopold matrix method. Results show that short-term project implementation has its most negative impact in the biological realm (with a score of −48), while long-term implementation would impact most favorably the social-economic-cultural component (+233). A sensitivity analysis of the EIA was employed to determine the relative impacts of the physical, biological, and social-economic-cultural components of the Shahriar irrigation project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]