Typology of environmental stakes and use of various methods of environmental assessment, notably in the field of waste and industrial installations

Summary

The notion of "preserving the environment" is generally perceived as a whole, even though the issues associated with it are extremely variable and heterogeneous: respect for biodiversity, the greenhouse effect, deforestation, water quality, air quality, destruction of the ozone layer, and so on. The need for a clear and comprehensible global approach to these issues is strongly felt by environmental professionals and citizens alike. Faced with these difficulties, the aim of this work was to : - clarify the environmental issues by structuring and detailing them, - define the correspondence between the issues identified and the environmental assessment methods. The main methods studied were LCA, HRA (health risk assessment), ERA (ecosystem risk assessment) and the concepts of environmental indicators. The "ecological footprint" was used as an example of an indicator.