An Introduction to Improvement of Environmental Impact Assessment Methods in Iran

Environmental researchers in Iran have encountered serious and new challenges about the methods that responding to research demands for development, because of the rapid economic and social development of Iran during the last decades. On one side, traditional methods of environmental impact assessment have been criticized severely by specialists. On the other hand, theoretical bases and practical conditions for executing new methods of environmental impact assessment are not available in Iran. In this situation, development of useful concepts and methods of environmental impact assessment is necessary more than the past. Furthermore, the reaction of specialists to this need has varied between being complicated and simplified. This paper indicates that improvement of environmental impact assessment methods is achievable, with assist of the basic concepts on ecology and the sciences which are related to it. In addition, authors believe that determining the status and revising current methods of environmental impact assessment will be helpful to recognize the development rate of this science. To indicate these two mentioned points, with help of concepts in ecology and Philosophy science, this paper is going over both new and traditional methods of environmental impact assessment. Then, a case study in the Golestan province(in Iran) has paved the way for criticizing and testing some concepts of new and traditional methods of environmental impact assessment in Iran.