Environmental Impact Assessment Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The statement that is not correct is that a major project would employ less numbers.

A major project, such as a dam, power plant, highway or industrial complex, involves substantial capital investment, covers a large area and has wide-ranging environmental and social impacts. These features are why such projects require full environmental impact assessment.

Major projects typically employ large numbers of people in construction and operation, so 'employ less numbers' contradicts their nature. The other three options are true characteristics of a major project.

Answer: D

The correct matching is (a)-(4), (b)-(1), (c)-(2), (d)-(3).

• The environmental inventory is a complete description of the environment as it exists in the area: (4).
• Screening decides whether the project needs an EIA at all: (1).
• Scoping defines the content of the EIA, the issues and impacts it must study: (2).
• The environmental setting describes the environment likely to be affected by the project: (3).

Screening as the step that decides the need for EIA and scoping as the step that sets its content are the fixed points; only one code matches both, and the inventory and setting then fall into place.

Answer: A

The analysis is life-cycle assessment.

Life-cycle assessment (LCA), standardised in ISO 14040 and 14044, inventories all the inputs and outputs of a product or process from raw material extraction through manufacture, use and disposal (cradle to grave), and assesses their environmental burdens, such as energy use, emissions and waste.

Toxicity studies, chronic or acute, measure the harm a substance does to organisms over long or short exposures. They may feed into an LCA, but they do not assess the full environmental burden of a product.