Assessing the impact of strategic environmental assessment

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) -its direct impact on policies, plans and programs (PPPs) and its indirect and longer-term impacts. Criteria for assessing SEA's impact are developed and applied in the Canadian context based on a survey of SEA practitioners, and the perceived opportunities and challenges to realizing the full impact of SEA explored. Results indicate that SEA does have a direct impact on PPPs, but its indirect impacts are either constrained or difficult to distinguish from an agency's normal policies, practices and innovations. Amongst the most significant challenges to realizing the indirect impacts of SEA is the lack of shared vision for SEA by those responsible for implementation, and incongruences between the need for rapid results by way of PPP approval versus the long-term commitment required to realize many of the benefits of SEA. Indirect impacts require more explicit consideration at the outset of the SEA design process than what is currently the case if the benefits of SEA are to be fully recognized.

A Strategic Advocacy Role in Sea for Sustainability

“…The strategic consequence of this political choice is the shrinkage of an instrument that has a much bigger potential (Partidário, 2000(Partidário, , 2009Bidstrup and AM Hansen, 2014;Lobos and Partidário, 2014), with consequences not only within the EU but all over where the Directive has been cloned. Recent reviews note limitations concerning lack of effectiveness of SEA in enabling learning and consideration of indirect impacts (Fischer et al, 2009;Acharibasam and Noble, 2014) and show practitioners reluctance in using an instrument not adequate for higher levels of decision-making (João and McLauchlan, 2014). But the review conducted by Lobos and Partidário (2014) went further to explore why is this happening.…”

Many Rivers to Cross : Evaluating the Benefits and Limitations of Strategic Environmental Assessment for the Koshi River Basin

“…Furthermore, the complex and flexible nature of strategic level decisions merit a broader investigative approach in order to capture the informal issues and learning processes present behind official policy (Cherpa et al 2007, Fischer and Onyango 2012, Gazola et al 2011, Jha-Thakur et al 2009. This review therefore aimed to ascertain to what extent existing EA systems meet SEA best practice through the combination of a document review and interviews with key stakeholders (Acharibasama and Noblea 2014 Four elements of SEA were critically identified as being key for its effective application to hydropower in the Koshi, these are:…”

Bridging the divide between theory and guidance in strategic environmental assessment: A path for Italian regions

“…The second theme (B) deals with the integration between SEA and PPP. This implies an effective interaction between the two processes while keeping the SEA procedure as autonomous and impartial as possible (Acharibasam & Noble, 2014). To this extent, authorities involved with PPP and SEA should not overlap.…”