QUALITATIVE RESEARCH APPROACHES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES: A REVIEW

The environmental sciences can be constituted based on some branches of natural science, social science and applied science. Solving environmental problems requires integration of expertise in some academic disciplines. This challenge stems from the essence of environmental sciences because these fields have an interdisciplinary nature. The most academic disciplines have specialized research methodology, but environmental sciences need to some research methodologies. The aim of this paper is to present qualitative research methodology for solving environmental problems and respond to expected questions through gathering and inferring from the results of various qualitative studies. In this paper, various qualitative research approaches used in the studies are discussed. Using qualitative research is inevitable under some conditions. Based on presented cases, the capability of qualitative research in environmental areas is explained. Qualitative research can respond to many questions in environmental researches and professional reports. Qualitative research approaches may be used to respond the questions arisen in preparation of environmental professional reports. This research methodology has the advantage that can be performed with minimum planning and equipment. In many complex environmental studies, design of quantitative research is very difficult or impossible. In this condition, using qualitative research design is an appropriate option.