Lecture 16 - Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment

Thursday , 4th June, 1 hr

Levels of decision-making in environmental assessment

What is SEA?

A decision-support tool at a strategic level – for supporting government and other authorities preparing or modifying strategic actions (policies, plans and programmes, PPPs)

SEIA can be seen as an improvement of and a complement to the EIA - usable in the decision-making process leading to an EIA

Therefore SEA is an assessment tool that addresses the environmental implications of decisions made above project level

What are the strategic actions?

They are 3Ps:

1. Policy- the inspiration and guidance for action

2. Plan – a set of co-ordinated and timed objectives for implementing a policy

3. Programme – a set of projects in a particular area

Direct and indirect effects of PPPs

Social effects

• Health

• Demography

• Work

• Recreation

• Consumption

• Culture

• Values

Economic • Markets • Technology • Resource

management • Industrial

structure • Regional

development • Business

practices • Trade • Competitiveness

Environmental • Ecosystems • Habitats • Resources • Air • Water • Soil • Flora • Fauna • Aesthetics • Natural heritage

key questions that any SEA should face right?

Why conduct an SEA?

To help achieve environmental protection and sustainable development by:

• Consideration of environmental effects of proposed strategic actions • Identification of the best practicable environmental option • Early warning of cumulative effects and large-scale changes To strengthen and streamline project EIA by: • Prior identification of scope of potential impacts and information needs • Clearance of strategic issues and concerns related to justification of proposals • Reducing the time and effort necessary to conduct individual reviews To integrate the environment into sector-specific decision-making by: • Promoting environmentally sound and sustainable proposals • Changing the way decisions are made

How is SEA different from EIA?

• The precision with which spatial implications can be defined is less

• The amount of detail relating to the nature of physical development is less

• The lead-time is greater

• The decision-making procedures and the organizations involved may differ, requiring greater degree of coordination

• The degree of confidentiality may well be greater

Sequence of actions within an SEIA system

SEA main procedural steps

Stages in, and links between, PPP making SEA

Methods / Techniques used in SEA

For good practice SEA must:

• Discuss the policy rather than justify it, otherwise subordination rather than added-value will occur

• Clearly identify feasible policy and planning options (alternatives) and compare them in an assessment context

• Be clearly articulated in/with the policy-making process

• Use simple methods (e.g. strategic sustainability assessment)

• Involve the public and reflect the view of all actors

• Use good communication means

Differences between SEA AND EIA

More differences …

Strengths of SEIA

• Makes it possible to investigate alternatives early in

the decision-making process, which also gives experts more time to collect relevant data

• Helping to put principles of sustainability into operation

• Giving an opportunity for public involvement in policy formulation

• Ensuring systematic appraisal of choices • Possible to see cumulative effects (but maybe hard). • Makes consideration of more diverse alternatives

possible, than when using EIA. • Facilitates more continuous communication between

different actors

Weaknesses of SEIA

• Proposals for plans and policies are often diffuse, and decisions are often made in an incremental and not in a clearly formulated way which may make the performance of SEAs hard

• Problems with system boundaries may occur. Many potential decisions flow from a higher-level decision, which leads to analytical complexity

• A large number and variety of alternatives have to be considered at the different stages of Policy formulation

• It is a very long term approach - there is a high uncertainty in trying to tell the future effects of PPPs

• There are few models for performance of SEA, because there are few reports of successful SEAs

• Lack of SEA standard guidelines

• Cost and time implications to PPP initiators