Environmental impact assessment of a steel industry development plan using combined method involving Leopold matrix and RIAM.

The present study was conducted to determine positive and negative impacts of Sepid-Farab Kavir steel (SKS) complex development plan and to propose suitable managerial strategies by a combined method involving Leopold matrix and Rapid Impact Assessment matrix (RIAM). The SKS complex is located in Aran-Bidgol city, Isfahan, Iran. Two scenarios of project implementation and project cancellation were formulated for SKS complex development plan, which has two sub-phases: construction and operation Using Leopold and RIAM matrices, the direct and indirect impacts of the project on the study area was investigated. The impact analysis for project cancellation scenario showed that the obtained scores of construction and operation phases were -119 and -52, respectively. Also, for project implementation scenario, the obtained scores of construction and operation phases were + 302 and + 382, respectively. The number of positive impacts in the implementation and cancellation scenarios were 354 and 48, respectively, and the number of negative impacts in implementation and cancellation scenarios were 270 and 127, respectively. Also, comparison of positive and negative impacts frequency in the two scenarios, and in the two sub-phases, in RIAM indicated the project implementation will have positive impacts in social-cultural and economic-operational aspects compared to option of prevention, especially in operation phase. The results of environmental impact assessment of the mentioned project indicated the superiority of positive impacts over the negative ones. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.