AIEIA: Software for fuzzy environmental impact assessment

Human activity has an inevitable impact on the environment and this is generally negative. It is undeniable that society is increasingly aware of the state of the surrounding environment, since it forms the basis for all human activity. There has therefore been a proliferation of environmental impact assessment (EIA) tools which enable this impact on the environment to be measured. The EIA process involves an enormous amount of quantitative and qualitative information which traditional EIA methods are unable to handle properly. This article presents a new fuzzy EIA model which perfectly incorporates both qualitative and quantitative information, using in its formulation the fuzzy set theory proposed by Zadeh. We also present AIEIA, an ingenious software program which implements this fuzzy methodology by providing an efficient tool for the prevention of environmental impacts. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.