Environmental Impact Assessment systems have been set up worldwide and have become a powerful environment safeguards in the project planning process. This course is intended to enable students to appreciate the purpose of EIA in the decision making processes and to understand the strengths of EIA in regard to environment management, as well as to appreciate the technical and social/ political limitations of EIA. The course introduces, describes, and enables students to appreciate that the best way to control environmental degradation is by predicting the possible irreversible negative effects of development and their mitigation or alternatives.