Accounting for uncertainty in evaluating water quality impacts of urban development plan

The implementation of urban development plans causes land use change, which can have significant environmental impacts. In light of this, environmental concerns should be considered sufficiently at an early stage of the planning process. However, uncertainties existing in urban development plans hamper the application of strategic environmental assessment, which is applied to evaluate the environmental impacts of policies, plans and programs. This study develops an integrated assessment method based on accounting uncertainty of environmental impacts. And the proposed method consists of four main steps: (1) designing scenarios of economic scale and industrial structure, (2) sampling for possible land use layouts, (3) evaluating each sample's environmental impact, and (4) identifying environmentally sensitive industries. In doing so, uncertainties of environmental impacts can be accounted. Then environmental risk, overall environmental pressure and potential extreme environmental impact of urban development plans can be analyzed, and environmentally sensitive factors can be identified, especially under considerations of uncertainties. It can help decision-makers enhance environmental consideration and take measures in the early stage of decision-making.