Environmental Impact Assessment of Land reclamation Project in Khuzestan Province; case of study Miyanab irrigation and drainage network

Environmental impact assessment is one of the acceptable ways to achieve sustainable development goals and can, as a planning tool, identify the potential environmental impacts that arise as a result of the implementation of constructional projects and provide rational options for their resolution. Undoubtedly, continuous evaluation of such projects can bring numerous and valuable achievements for policy makers, planners and those in charge of operation and maintenance, in order to implement improvements and improve the efficiency of the measures taken and prevent the waste of resources in future projects. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the environmental effects of land reclamation project in Khuzestan province within the Mianab irrigation and drainage network of Shushtar and for this purpose the ICOLD matrix method was used. In this method, the effect of each project activity on environmental components (ecological, physical and socio-economic) in the two phases of structural and operational was measured. The results indicate that the implementation of the project is preferable to its non-implementation, as the total consequences of the implementation of the project on the surrounding environment are positive (+108 points). Among the consequences of the project, the socio-economic environment has the most positive effects (176+ points) And the ecological environment with -49 has had the most negative impact on the environment. According to the findings of the study, the implementation of land reclamation plan in Khuzestan province within the Mianab irrigation and drainage network of Shushtar is environmentally appropriate and its continued implementation in neighboring lands is unrestricted provided that environmental standards are met.