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In Brazil, as the instrument of the National Environmental Policy is an essential tool for the environmental license, Law 6938/81, in its article 2, item III, instituted the evaluation of environmental impacts. With the development of the license studies, it was found that the environmental agencies, no matter how better equipped they were, would not have the conditions to proceed with the environmental impact assessment studies of certain activities and large-scale projects. Thus arose the need for these studies to be synthesized in a special document. The synthesis document was called, in the licensing system for polluting activities of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Deliberation CECA 3, of 12/28/1977), the "Environmental Influence Report" (RIMA), currently called "Environmental Impact Report". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how environmental conditions have influenced the level of development in the local population of the State of Bahía, given the growing importance of environmental issues and the lack of information on these issues in the State. To this end, the Index of Socio-Environmental Development --IDSA-- is innovative in introducing the Index of Human Development --IDH--, variables representing the environmental quality of the State municipalities. The IDSA average was 0.26, a value 0.4 points below that of the idh. Thus the study concludes that environmental quality is a significant factor in reducing the level of human development in Bahía. This has occurred principally as a result of the poor quality and availability of sanitation services provided by the State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]