Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix: case study for the Sliac Spa

Sustainability science repeatedly accents a need to account on an interaction between environment and humans while reporting to use of natural resources and recalling on sustainable production. Praxis around a world has shown that whatever positive an impact on environment a particular project is supposed to pose, it may, in fact, come true. It is because a benefit may come with negative effects on environment during a project construction, or a project may limit or increase human needs by reducing a general wealth of publics. This paper presents construction of Rapid Impact Assessment Matrix (RIAM) and analysis of sustainable development model for the Sliac Spa, an object of remarkable (inter)national reputation, somewhat operated since Late Medieval. Results show that the project contributes on sustainable development of the region, playing major positive impact on regional to national scale, compared to those negative ones related to a local area surrounding the areal mostly. However, a fact that S_EB > S_E and, thus S_EB = 0.33 and S_E = 0.21 means the environment around is more sensitive to a pressure on physical-chemical factors than to biota, even the physical-chemical components (PC) has the highest capacity for 'consumption' to satisfy human needs during site operation, maintenance or development. Indeed, ran scenarios on optimistic and pessimistic assumptions show that while groundwater depletion and consequent change in chemistry would have had devastating effect onto nature and wealth, improvement in status of houses may contribute to drop in human needs only. (authors)