The book that has had the most influence on you and how

has it influenced you

By: Praveen Mahajan
Reading books has always been my hobby. Regardless of subject matter, I have
read a lot of books in diversified areas. I believe that knowledge is required is to be
boosted in diversified areas in order to peaceful sustain in this challenging world. I also
believe that the books or more precisely the books written by model man have been
always providing the positive guiding path to the human beings. Guardian needs to
make the interest to their children for reading the books written by model man so that
children follow the right path guided by book in order to achieve the success in life by
positive attitude.
Being an engineer, I always want to keep with touch in various field of engineering in
order to upgrade my technical knowledge. Through the job in any company, I can
improve my knowledge in only one field, the job demanded. But books are the ultimate
source for me for skill development in any technical fields.
In the field of environmental engineering, I am very much interested in
Environmental Impact Assessment field and always want to improve my skill in this field
as well.
Interestingly, I am telling you when I was in college and pursuing my M.Tech
programme in Environmental Engineering and management, I was very weak in doing
Environmental Impact Assessments of any projects. The limit of weakness was that I

failed in the test exam at that time. Hence to boost my knowledge in order to sustain in
the class, I had read many books in this field.
Truly speaking all that books increased my knowledge in the field but not up to mark
what I expected from that books?
Needless to say I feel it is also required to mention, what the Environmental
Impact Assessments are? In general sense, Environmental Impact Assessments is the
impact analysis with the help technical feasibility, commercial viability, socio- economic
analysis and environmental analysis of any proposed project. If the impact analysis
shows that the project can be an efficient means of increasing economic and social
welfare of people without hampering our ecosystem, then the project can be passed for
construction by the authorities. The various countries adopted Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA) policies as a basic preventive mechanism and hence improving all
type of environment without hampering our ecosystem.
In order to develop effective Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) system, we
need to have strong knowledge, good approach, following systematic guideline lay
down by standard books in the same field then only the efficacy of EIA of any project
could be arises.
It should have vigilance eye to see all impacts associated with proposed projects
and need have systematic approach to analyze that impact.
Hence in the search of effective books about EIA, I come in contact with the book
written by R.E Munn (1979) on the topic Environmental impact assessment: principles

and procedures 2nd edition, published on behalf of the Scientific Committee on

Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) of the International Council of Scientific Unions
(ICSU) by John Wiley & Sons.
After reading this book, drastically improvement occurs in my knowledge about
Environmental Impact Assessment field in very short period. I am telling you, this book
is very knowledge full. This is only the book that positively influenced me since upgrade
of my skill & hence I would like to recommend this book for all those working/ studying
in the field of Environmental Impact Assessment.
R.E Munn was editor-in-chief of the SCOPE series of 60 books relating to
interdisciplinary environmental topics and SCOPE 5 deals with Environmental Impact
Assessment: Principles and Procedures.
Starting from basic about EIA, systematic definition, there principles and procedures
for doing it with different case studies are given in details in this book. Hence EIA fields
are easy to understand those follow this book. Due to systematic steps given in the
book of doing EIA, I believe that nobody those follow this book are going in confusion.
One can easily judge the importance of this book by seeing only the definition given
by R.E. Munn (1979) in this book. As per R.E. Munn (1979), EIA is defined as Identify
and predict the impact on the environment and mans health and well-being of
legislative proposals, policies, programs projects and operational procedures and to
interpret and communicate information about the impact". This is the most fitting
definition that given by Munn (1979)

From this definition it will be seen that the main issues associated with the meaning
of EIA are as follows:

ENVIRONMENT. It further defined as

a. Biophysical: It can be natural or manipulated

b. Social
c. Economic
d. Cultural

IMPACT

a. Adverse/Beneficial
b. Cumulative: It can be Spatial or Temporal
c. Direct/Indirect
d. Short/Medium/Long-term
e. Irreversible/Reversible

ASSESSMENT

a.
b.
c.
d.

Quantification
Prediction
Evaluation
Monitoring

e. Auditing
So, if we are able to understand the terminology associated with EIA, then doing
EIA of any projects is not the big deal. Whatever the difficulty we accounted for while
doing EIA can be easily resolved with the aid of this book.
Conclusion: - Knowing the EIA is now involved in decision making process for
selecting any alternative developmental project, there is a need of strong knowledge of
doing EIA for any projects. As the systematic definition, principles, procedures are given
in this book, I strictly follow the guide line given in the book while doing the EIA and
same is also recommended to other those working/studying in this field. I very much
influenced from this book since my knowledge/skill is excellently improved and now I am
able to handle the EIA of large projects as well as taking the lecture classes. Even the
students while delivering my lectures are very happy with me