Turbining the Leopold Matrix

Abstract

The conservation of natural resources is a fundamental issue, in addition to being, in many cases, regulated by laws and decrees. In Brazil, resolutions require a rigorous environmental impact assessment to be carried out and the EIA (Environmental Impact Study) and RIMA (Environmental Impact Report) to be generated in any projects with activities that potentially cause degradation to the environment. A widespread way of assessing environmental impacts is the interaction matrix known as the Leopold Matrix. Many scientific articles use the original or modified Leopold matrix to perform the assessment of environmental impacts, although they commonly point out disadvantages or limitations in the use of the matrix. The purpose of this article is to propose a new matrix, named “Leopold Turbinated Matrix”, with the elimination of the identified disadvantages, in addition to enhancing the advantages, without visually loading the matrix, in addition to including new elements, which enhance its ability to evaluate and predict environmental impacts. For this, an in-depth study was carried out on the applications of the matrix based on national and international scientific and technological. The developed “Leopold Turbine Matrix”solve identified disadvantages or limitations, in addition to including new criteria, so that it constitutes a new powerful, efficient and comprehensive tool regarding the assessment of environmental impacts.