Environmental impacts are impacts on the natural environment. That is, they are impacts that affect landforms, land and soil; water resources; plants and animals; the atmosphere and climate; and the links between all of these elements.
Examples of environmental impacts include:
- Altering the physical geography of an area: for example, your project might alter the physical geography of an area by:
- Changing its physical characteristics
- Affecting coastal or fluvial dynamics
- Causing erosion
- Generating pollution: for example, your project might:
- Pollute water resources
- Affect air quality
- Result in the contamination of land
- Generate hazardous waste
- Impact on ecosystem functions and services: for example, your project might:
- Introduce remove foreign organisms or species
- Affect conservation areas or proposed conservation areas
- Affect threatened or endemic species and their habitat
- Affect mangroves
See our guidelines for some more specific examples of environmental impacts.