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 decisionmaking 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

Environmental

Markets
Technology
Resource
management
Industrial
structure
Regional
development
Business
practices
Trade
Competitiveness

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