Method for planning, communicating and evaluating projects that impact the environment

A method for evaluating an environmental project, comprising the steps of:

• (a) receiving project information regarding an environmental project;
• (b) providing a document preparation guide in response to the project information;
• (c) receiving environmental information requested in the document preparation guide;
• (d) publishing an electronic environmental project document including the environmental information;
• (e) receiving comments regarding the environmental project document;
• (f) forecasting an environmental impact in response to the environmental information;
• (g) backcasting alternative project characteristics to achieve a desired project;
• (h) searching a data base to obtain environmental information for the environmental project;
• (i) obtaining a plurality of issues of concern having respective values;
• and,
• (j) determining a consensus preference of project alternatives in response to weighted issues of concern and values.

A method for accessing environmental information via the Internet, comprising the steps of:

• (a) receiving environmental information regarding a proposed environment-modifying project, including information about:
• an environment-modifying natural event or construction project (“project”);
• a natural, constructed, or socioeconomic feature in the area of the project (“setting”);
• a change to the setting brought about by the project (“impact”);
• or a feature designed to ameliorate a potential environmental impact of the project (“mitigation”);
• (b) storing at least some of the environment information with metadata;
• (c) receiving a request via the Internet for requested environmental information, the requested information being the environmental information itself or any information associated with metadata or other information derived at least in part from the environmental information;
• (d) relating keywords, specific values or other user-specified indicators to metadata and environmental information to facilitate retrieval of requested environmental information;
• and
• (e) retrieving the requested environmental information.