Environmental protection is a global issue. But most of the action is happening at the local level. How can communities keep their air clean, their water pure, and their people and property safe from climate and environmental hazards? Newly updated, The Environmental Planning Handbook gives local governments, nonprofits, and citizens the guidance they need to create an action plan they can implement now. It’s essential reading for a post-Katrina, post-Sandy world.

Originally published in 1997, Urban Environmental Planning provides a groundbreaking overview of innovative methods and techniques for measuring and managing the environmental effects of urban land uses on other urban activities. Fully revised and updated, this second edition brings together a team of leading environmental planners and policy makers from the US, UK, Europe and SE Asia to address the central questions confronting sustainable urban development. Typical questions include: How can you measure and manage the negative environmental effects of intrusive urban activities such as manufacturing and transport on sensitive land uses including residential and recreational areas? Can a balance be found between reducing these effects through means such as separating conflicting land uses? While other sources identify the need for effective programmes to improve urban environmental quality, this volume describes and assesses analytical methods and implementing programmes practised by leading communities around the world.

The Netherlands is one of the most prominent and innovative countries in the field of environmental planning. Over the past decade, its government has introduced such ground-breaking schemes as Integrated Environmental Zoning, the City-Environment Project, the Bubble Concept and Policy Concepts and new approaches to coping with noise, odours, soil pollution, air pollution and safety issues. These initiatives and policy tools reflect a rapidly changing and decentralising environmental policy, which contrasts with more conventional environmental ideologies. However, at present little is known of these policies in the international arena. De Roo shows how and why, in recent years, the country's planning system has moved away from its traditional 'top-down' structure. The resulting changes have had far-reaching consequences for the traditional principles of Dutch environmental policy. In addition, measures for compensating excessive environmental loads are now open to discussion and environmental quality is a subject of negotiation among stakeholders. All these developments mean that environmental policy-making has become more closely integrated with local initiatives that focus on general location-specific qualities. In this book, this development is referred to as 'tailor-made comprehensive planning', which relates closely to the local context, is area-specific, situation-dependent, and embraces shared governance.

This innovative introduction to environmental planning is designed for an international readership. Each of the book's chapters focuses on a key question in environmental planning and works through principles which are appropriate in any national context. Case studies from around the world show how the principles apply in practice.

Environmental planning forms the basis of all site development decisions and deals with the factors that must be considered before a site plan can be drawn up. Environmental Planning for Site Development emphasizes the man/nature interface and explains how nature limits and controls what can happen on every piece of land. The text is clearly set out and will help the reader understand exactly what information is needed for a site planning proposal. The book includes a live case study to demonstrate how GIS systems are now assisting in the design and decision process as communities increasingly participate in local decisions. (Local Agenda 21)

The connections between economics, planning, and the environment are receiv ing increased attention among scholars and policy makers in many countries. The common denominator among these three variables is the earth's life support sys tems, the ecosystems on which the world depends. When we describe our physi cal surroundings as a collection of possible uses, we are establishing linkages between economics, planning, and the environment. Because possible alternative uses compete with each other, and conflicts arise over scarce land resources, the varying environmental impacts of alternative uses are major concerns for the cur rent as well as the next generation. How to achieve sustainable development is the pressing question for today's environmental professionals. Environmental planners and engineers help us study the implications of our choices, and new technologies and techniques that improve the practice of environmental planning should enhance our ability to protect our future. The depletion of the earth's natural resources and loss of biodiversity, the deg radation of air, land, and water quality, the accumulation of greenhouse gases leading to changes in our climate, and the depletion of the ozone layer comprise only a partial list of environmental issues that concern our policy makers. To sup port their decisions, environmental planning must be a multidimensional and multidisciplinary activity that incorporates social, economic, political, geograph ical, and technical factors. Solutions for problems in these areas frequently re quire not only numerical analyses but also heuristic analyses, which in turn depend on the intuitive judgements of planners and engineers.

Illustrated by case studies from both smaller nations, such as Carriacon, Barbados and St Lucia and larger countries, including Cuba, Mexico and Jamaica, this volume brings together leading writers concerned with environmental planning in the Caribbean to provide an interdisciplinary contemporary critical overview. They argue that context is central to the practice of environmental planning in this region. Rather than focusing on a deterministic colonial geography and history, this volume proposes that, whilst a wide range of foreign planning influences can be felt in different contexts, environmental planning emerges in specific settings, through the fluid interaction between local and global relations of power. Thus, a number of chapters explore the effects of external discourses upon the region, while others examine discourses on the US-style democracy and on tourism.

This Companion presents a distinctive approach to environmental planning by: situating the debate in its social, cultural, political and institutional context; being attentive to depth and breadth of discussions; providing up-to-date accounts of the contemporary practices in environmental planning and their changes over time; adopting multiple theoretical and analytical lenses and different disciplinary approaches; and drawing on knowledge and expertise of a wide range of leading international scholars from across the social science disciplines and beyond. It aims to provide critical reviews of the state-of-the-art theoretical and practical approaches as well as empirical knowledge and understandings of environmental planning; encourage dialogue across disciplines and national policy contexts about a wide range of environmental planning themes; and, engage with and reflect on politics, policies, practices and decision-making tools in environmental planning. The Companion provides a deeper understanding of the interdependencies between the themes in the four parts of the book (Understanding ‘the environment’, Environmental governance, Critical environmental pressures and responses, and Methods and approaches to environmental planning) and its 37 chapters. It presents critical perspectives on the role of meanings, values, governance, approaches and participations in environmental planning. Situating environmental planning debates in the wider ecological, political, ethical, institutional, social and cultural debates, it aims to shine light on some of the critical journeys that we have traversed and those that we are yet to navigate and their implications for environmental planning research and practice. The Companion provides a reference point mapping out the terrain of environmental planning in an international and multidisciplinary context. The depth and breadth of discussions by leading international scholars make it relevant to and useful for those who are curious about, wish to learn more, want to make sense of, and care for the environment within the field of environmental planning and beyond.