Strategic Environmental Assessment in Brazilian Academic Research

Abstract

The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is an instrument for integrating the environmental issue into strategic planning with increasing the emphasis on impact assessment research in the world. Although it is not mandatory in Brazil, there are applications and initiatives for its formalization. The objective is to explore the Brazilian academic research on SEA through quantitative and qualitative analysis of papers, theses, and dissertations. The results reveal that since 2000 to 2020, local research has been represented by 75 dissertations and theses from 20 universities and, since 2005 to 2020, by 61 articles from 114 authors, published in 30 journals. While the research is in an early stage of development, it covers a broad diagnosis of the application of SEA, contributions to a Brazilian system, has little methodological discussion, and encompasses comprehensive analysis of the quality of the reports. We recommend that future research aims at fostering and building a legal framework for SEA for Brazilian planning.

Translating Best Practice Principles into criteria for evaluating the consideration of biodiversity in SEA practice

“…Brazil has great experience of applying EIA to projects (Gallardo and Bond, 2011a;Cruz et al, 2018;Duarte and Sánchez, 2020;Moretto et al 2021) including evaluating the impacts on biodiversity (Rosa and Sánchez, 2016;Souza and Sánchez, 2018;da Silva Dias et al, 2019;Falavigna et al, 2020;Pimenta and Fonseca, 2021) and understanding the basis for good practice (Gallardo and Bond, 2011b;Duarte et al, 2017), but SEA has not yet been mandated in Brazil (Sánchez, 2017;Gallardo et al, 2016;Malvestio and Montaño, 2019;Siqueira-Gay and Sánchez, 2019). Nevertheless, since 1994, some attempts, mainly at the state level, have been carried out to formalize SEA processes for planning (Gallardo et al, 2021), mainly under the sponsorship of the multilateral finance banks (Pellin et al, 2011). Consequently, about 60 SEAs have been undertaken in the country on a discretionary basis (Tshibangu and Montaño, 2019).…”

A Avaliação Ambiental Estratégica (AAE) e a inserção da sustentabilidade nos planos de bacias hidrográficas: uma proposta

“…Embora a AAE não tenha sido ainda institucionalizado no Brasil, diversas iniciativas experimentais já foram desenvolvidas, conforme registrado por Agra Filho & Ramos (2015), Teixeira (2008), Margato & Sánchez (2014), e Montaño et al (2013), que identificaram a elaboração de mais de 40 AAE no país. As conclusões dessas iniciativas convergem com a pesquisa acadêmica realizada no período de 2000 a 2020, relatada por Gallardo et al (2021). Esse estudo revela que as publicações em teses, dissertações e periódicos se caracterizam por apresentar um "diagnóstico amplo da aplicação local da AAE" tanto nas proposições para um sistema brasileiro e quanto na análise da qualidade dos relatórios brasileiros.…”