Chapter 5 Environmental Appraisal, Human Needs, and a Sustainable Future

Abstract

Publisher Summary Environmental planning and economic development depends upon environmental appraisal. The choices of what to assess and what is valued are fundamental to the decisions that are taken. Implicit in these choices are assumptions. The consequences of these assumptions often differentially affect those who make the decisions and those whose environment is impacted. Both the impacted environment and the decision process are at the root of considerable psychological malaise. Humans have engaged in record-keeping for many centuries. Cave paintings can be considered an early form of environmental appraisal, an accounting of existing conditions that communicated presumably important information. In addition, substantial recent work has focused on the contrast between economic and environmental indicators (or accounting procedures) in the insights they provide about the current global condition.