کاربرد ارزیابی زیست محیطی استراتژیک برای ارزیابی تداوم توسعه زیرساخت

This paper addresses the need for an environmental assessment of policies, plans, and programmes (Strategic Environmental Assessment—SEA). It presents the concept and procedures of the art in SEA, and focuses on its application to sustainability assessment of infrastructure development. A specific case in Spain is described: the planning of ring and radial motorway approaches to Madrid.

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of projects is today extended all over the world. However, as EIAs constitute preventive instruments, their efficiency increases when applied at higher levels of the decision-making process and used from more global approaches. Therefore, the environmental assessment should be extended to earlier stages of the policy-making and planning process, when the strategic decisions (such as location or type of project) have not been made yet. The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is the term used to describe the environmental assessment process for policies, plans, and programmes (PPPs) [2]. Moreover, individual projects have not only economic but also environmental, social, and political impacts that can be acceptable when considering an isolated project, but unacceptable when taking into account both the direct and indirect effects of projects, policies, and programmes acting in synergy. SEA provides the framework for the articulation of individual projects in a way that is coherent and respectful with the environmental, social, political, and economic conditions. SEA contributes to a better planning and monitoring process and is a potential tool for decision making, as its more integrated assessment procedures improve the coordination between different impact assessments. SEAs should enable foresight and assist policy makers to design projects that maximize environmental, functional, economical, social, and political goals.

Strategic Environmental Assessment constitutes a powerful tool for sustainable development, strengthening both the process of decision making and the project EIA. Strategic Environmental Assessment demands a change in the way of approaching the planning process, introducing environmental and social considerations from its beginning, and bringing sustainability criteria throughout the process, from policy design down to project level. Advances in evaluation indicators, criteria, and methodologies are still necessary for the applicability of SEA. Some general indicators from EIA can be used, but there is a need to deepen into those related to the assessment of the achievement of planning objectives, as well as the coherence of spatial restrictions (protection areas) or from sustainability indicators (contribution to the greenhouse effect). In parallel, the establishment of sustainability indicators will at the same time contribute to advances in the process. The European directive on SEA will set the obligation of environmental assessment in fields such as energy, water, roads, town, and country planning, and this will certainly mean a big step towards sustainability of urban infrastructures.