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.