Quantifying the environmental impact on individuals' well-being in risk analysis

Catastrophes, such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion, exemplify how accidents that damage the environment affect society in ways that exceed human and property losses. Environmental damages caused by disasters are often continuous, influencing a broader portion of society, and might continually affect future generations moreso than the acute impacts associated with human health risks. As this paper demonstrates, policies in the United States and abroad affirm the importance of protecting the environment as a common asset for current and future members of society. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a required common tool implemented by decision-makers to analyze the environmental impacts of their actions. Analysts around the world use various methods and techniques to assess the impacts of human actions on the environment. However, the effect of environmental impacts on individuals’ well-being is not sufficiently assessed in current EIA methodologies. Although current methodologies discuss how the environment may be changed by a particular human action, the scholarship does not sufficiently address questions related to how the affected environment can change human life. In response, this paper aims to improve the completeness of EIA methodologies by proposing a capability approach for assessing the effect of environmental impacts on humans’ well-being. Two human capabilities are specified to explicitly address the environmental impacts of human actions. Evaluating the proposed capabilities in EIA procedures can enrich and complement current EIA practices and more fully assess human actions’ impacts.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Civil Engineering

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Tavanaie Marvi, Morteza

Contributors dc:contributor

• Gardoni, Paolo
• Murphy, Colleen
• Rowell, Arden

• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
• Capability approach
• Ecosystem Services
• National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
• risk analysis

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2015 Morteza Tavanaie Marvi

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/88237

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/88237