Abstract
Environmental Impact Assessment, known by its abbreviation EIA, is a planning tool to sustain the natural environment in its outstanding place by evaluating the consequences of a planned activity before putting into practice. Today the developed countries as well as the developing countries are undertaking EIA as the precautionary measure to judge the aftereffects of new developments at the planning stage ensuring the wellbeing of ecosystems. The origin of EIA took place in 1969 in the form of a domestic law by United States through initiating National Environmental Policy Act. Over the time period of many years, now many countries including the third world countries have started following the US set example by incorporating the study of EIA into their officially authorized system. In addition to this, a number of researches have revealed that EIA can play important role in contributing sustainable environment by supporting the technical and scientific understanding and their improvement in different fields, providing guidance in design of development projects, enhancing the governance of system and most importantly by modifying the attitudes of the society. For this reason, the role of EIA in the social, physical and environmental sectors has become significant. This paper will look into the mechanism of three different nations as how they are implementing this concern in their institutions. The paper, therefore, concisely reviewed the substantive processes of EIA, in the cases of Scotland, Malaysia and Pakistan.
Keyword(s)
Assessment, Environmental Impact, MALAYSIA, Scotland, Pakistan