Chapter 6 of the Final Report (Report No. 260) of "Methodology, Focalization, Evaluation and Scope of Environmental Impact Assessment", NATO/Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society, Brussels 2002
By Ralf Aschemann
1. Introduction
The pilot study’s project group decided to split the SEA related chapters of this report into two different ones: One is dealing with strategic environmental assessment in the context of land-use plans and programmes (“cross sectoral planning”), this one is dealing with SEA of sectoral strategies: Relating to these, the EU SEA Directive lists in its Article 3(2)a plans and programmes (PPs), “which are prepared for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy, industry, transport, waste management, water management, telecommunications, tourism (…) and which set the framework for future development consent of projects listed in the Annexes I and II to Directive 85/337/EEC (…).”
Several workshops led to the reports of the pilot study “Methodology, Focalization, Evaluation and Scope of Environmental Impact Assessment” (for the Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society (CCMS) of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)) and dealt with SEAs of sectoral PPs as well as SEAs of land-use PPs .
The SEA topic is an emerging and important one, because all EU Member States have to bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with the SEA Directive before 21 July 2004. In the light of the enlargement of the EU not only 15, but 27 countries are requested to implement the Directive’s provisions in their national legal systems. Consequently, the Directive itself has worldwide impacts and effects, e.g. on the environmental legislation of developed countries outside the EU (e.g. Japan), of transition countries and so called development countries and furthermore on the environmental policies of international organizations (e.g. European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), United Nations/Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)), because it is acting as a state-of-the-art model for SEA.
SEA is a valuable tool to
integrate the environment into strategic decision-making: Recently, the
Commission published a study on that crucial issue, which is accessible
via the world wide web .
Beside that integration
principle the contribution of SEA to a sustainable development (SD) is
one the core topics within the actual environmental discussion. An ongoing
study of the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) is
dealing with all three pillars of SD and tries to analyse the “Integration
of Environmental, Social and Economic Issues in Spatial Planning – Development
of a Framework ”.
Considering the issues mentioned
above and given the fact, that the pilot study started its task approximately
ten years ago, the project group prepared questionnaires for its final
16th workshop (Wilrijk, Belgium, April 2002) in order to gain actual experiences
regarding SEA, both in the context of land-use PPs and sectoral PPs.
This chapter intends to
briefly describe the replies of the questionnaires concerning SEA within
sectoral PPs, to highlight some resulting issues and finally to draw some
conclusions and recommendations.
2. SEA questionnaire and some replies
The questionnaire for the SEA of sectoral PPs contained the following questions related to the countries of the pilot study’s participants:
A formal SEA has been established
in the following countries: Netherlands (since 1987), Poland (since 2001)
and Slovak Republic (since 1994). Currently, Romania is drafting the revision
of its Environmental Protection Law, considering the new developments concerning
the EU Directives on SEA, EIA (environmental impact assessment) and IPPC
(integrated pollution prevention and control) as well as the Aarhus and
Espoo Convention.
With that law Romania intends
to fulfil inter alia the requirements of the SEA Directive; Austria, the
Flemish Region of Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, the Slovak Republic
and Spain still have to do some work to do so.
Concerning the conduction
of voluntary or mandatory SEAs a wide range is to observe: E.g. Austria
gathered SEA experiences in waste management and transport, the Flemish
region in transport and water management, the Netherlands in waste management,
water management, Poland in transport, Romania in industry (mining), energy
and waste management, Slovakia in water management, energy and waste management.
In five of the countries
(Romania, Spain: no information available) one hundred SEAs have been undertaken,
approximately.
Mostly, those SEAs dealt
only with the identification, analysis and assessment of environmental
effects, social and economic aspects have been considered in the Netherlands
and Romania, partly in Austria, the Flemish region and in Slovakia.
All geographical levels
(national, regional, local) have been covered in the SEAs mentioned.
For the screening process
there are a lot of ideas, often related to the provisions of the EIA Directive,
trying to transpose them to the strategic level.
The monitoring seems to
be a difficult step within the SEA; concerning transboundary effects it
was reported, that there are ongoing negotiations for an SEA protocol under
the Espoo convention.
Public participation does
not seem to be a problem to the respondents; the consideration of secondary,
cumulative and/or synergistic effects might be seen as a difficult task.
Coming to the question regarding the most remarkable evolution steps within the last years/since beginning of the CCMS pilot study concerning SEA: Austria has conducted several SEA pilot projects, in the Flemish region there was a big SEA project for the Flemish mobility plan, for the Dutch and the Romanian colleagues the most important moment was the publication of the SEA Directive, Slovakia reported, that SEA experience has increased over the last years.
The implementing of the SEA Directive is seen as a main challenge for the near future, especially its elements of the promotion of good practice and methodology. The development of a useful screening procedure was mentioned, moreover issues like quality assurance, public participation (at what moment, who is involved?), the development of alternatives (including the “zero option”) and of guidance material for the authorities involved.
The final question dealt
with the impact of the EIA-CCMS pilot study itself. It was mentioned, that
there was no direct influence, but the knowledge transfer and exchange
was assessed as useful and valuable, e.g. enriching the ongoing discussions
of the implementation of the SEA Directive by using the conclusions and
recommendations of the CCMS reports in order to raise the awareness of
the public and of politicians. Partly, the recommendations have been used
in dialogue with decision-makers in order to prepare the environmental
legislation, moreover they have influenced the dialogue about SEA process,
procedure and methodology.
3. Selected resulting issues
Compared to EIA SEA is still
a “young” instrument: Currently, it is in its evolution and development
phase, especially for the EU due to the SEA Directive. This “milestone”
of the EU environmental policy takes into account, that there are different
environmental assessment systems operating within Member States. The SEA
Directive contains a set of common procedural requirements necessary to
contribute a high level of protection of the environment, especially related
to the strategic level.
According to the subsidiarity
principle the SEA Directive is laying down a minimal framework, setting
out the broad principles of the environmental assessment system and leaving
the details to the Member States.
Despite the one hundred conducted
SEAs mentioned in the section above, we are facing a lot of problems in
the context of implementing the SEA into the national legal systems and
safeguarding to reach the objectives of the SEA; on the other hand that
SEA stock offers a lot approaches and leads to a variety of lessons learned.
Based on the analysis of
the questionnaire’s outcome some important issues in the context of implementing
an effective and useful SEA will be highlighted in the following.
It is very important to have
a suitable screening step: The decision whether an SEA is necessary or
not needs a thorough basis. An SEA should be carried out only for certain
PPs which are likely to have significant effects on the environment.
The scoping is a crucial
step within the SEA procedure, too: Here we have the decision on the framework
for the environmental report (ER), the selected reasonable alternatives,
the level of detail and more. Mistakes in this phase would lead to a non
satisfying SEA.
The monitoring of the significant
environmental effects of the PP implemented in order to identify at an
early stage unforeseen adverse effects and to assess the quality of the
done assessment is an important and difficult task, too.
From a methodological point of view it is crucial to identify suitable indicators in order to assess the direct, indirect (secondary), cumulative and synergistic significant effects on the environment. Depending of the SEA’s subject the borderline between SEA and sustainability impact assessment (includes beside the ecological social and economic effects) might be somewhat fuzzy.
Quality assurance is explicitly
laid down in the SEA Directive, cf. Article 12(2): “Member States shall
ensure that environmental reports are of a sufficient quality to meet the
requirements of this Directive and shall communicate to the Commission
any measures they take concerning the quality of these reports.”
There are more mechanisms
of quality control measures to mention: The environmental authorities have
to be consulted when deciding on the scope and level of detail of the information
which must be included in the ER, and they can express their opinion on
the drafted PP and the accompanying ER before the adoption of the PP, the
latter one is valid also for the public affected. The monitoring provisions,
requested by the SEA Directive in its Article 10, can act as another mean
within quality control.
Through the application of
SEA good practice can be promoted, “success stories” can be disseminated,
guidance material can be developed.
4. Conclusions and recommendations
Finally, some conclusions will be drawn and some suggestions will be given in order to increase the use and the effectiveness of the SEA application in the future in order to reach its main goals, laid down in Article 1 of the SEA Directive: “The objective of this Directive is to provide for a high level of protection of the environment and to contribute to the integration of environmental considerations into the preparation and adoption of plans and programmes with a view to promoting sustainable development, by ensuring that, in accordance with this Directive, an environmental assessment is carried out of certain plans and programmes which are likely to have significant effects on the environment.”
I would like to limit that task by focussing on four key points:
Firstly, the SEA community
should learn from marketing activities and should promote its “product”
SEA in order to demonstrate its potential and usefulness. One approach
to do that is a short publication of the SEA performance criteria, done
by the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) with its
“Special Publication Series No. 1” : It states, that a good-quality SEA
process is integrated, sustainability-led, focused, participative and iterative
and lists criteria for each of the five items.
Success stories have to
be told: The DG Environment of the European Commission is doing that by
publishing the benefits of a certain EIA in terms of costs saving
in its web site.
Secondly, specific guidance
is necessary on various SEA issues. There are good examples like the publication
of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity on “Further
development of guidelines for incorporating biodiversity-related issues
into environmental-impact-assessment legislation or processes and in strategic
impact assessment” .
Guidance and training is
essential and an important component of raising wider awareness and communication
strategies. Mechanisms need to be developed within government departments
to foster and retain “institutional memory”, because this could be hampered
by frequent change of personnel. One should not rely unduly on the special
competencies of individuals .
Thirdly, the SEA Directive is only an intermediate stop on the way to a comprehensive system of environmental assessment: The next evolution step should be an extension of the scope of the Directive to policies as well as to other areas and/or sectors and other types of PPs . In the field of environmental assessment of policies there is already some experience like the Dutch “e-test” for legislation pieces or the Canadian “1999 Cabinet Directive on the Environmental Assessment of Policy, Plan and Program Proposals” .
Last, not least knowledge
transfer should be strengthened. Beside the authorities of the Member States
organizations like the national EIA centres, the mentioned IAIA or the
International Commission for Impact Assessment (ICIA) - currently in its
establishing phase - could be key actors in this context.
National and international
workshops, conferences, common research projects and networks could support
that task. In this context the CCMS pilot study is a shining example.
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