پیاده سازی ارزیابی زیست محیطی استراتژیک از ابزارهای برنامه ریزی فضایی : مطالعه در استان های ایتالیایی

After more than a decade from the publication of the European Directive 2001/42/CE (Directive) on Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), the design and construction of the interested spatial planning instruments has gone through a variety of changes and integrations in European and in world states. This inhomogeneous panorama can be explained with a pattern of institutional structures that have so far affected the implementation of the Directive. The aim of this paper is to investigate the level of implementation of the Directive in Italy by developing a comparative analysis of the quality of integration of SEA within the design of the spatial coordination plan of a set of Italian provinces. Italian practice is analyzed in the framework of a comparative study of worldwide SEA implementation within spatial and land use planning. The results reveal strengths and weaknesses in SEA implementation at the provincial level and, in particular, the emergence of critical areas of research concerning institutional context, public participation, monitoring, and observatory of the spatial transformations.

The publication of the Directive 2001/42/CE (European Parliament and Council of the European Union, 2001) introducing the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) dates back to more than a decade ago. In the meantime, the implementation of the principles of the Directive has been characterized by a series of regulations adopted by each EU member state in order to incorporate the European framework regulation and to encourage the application of SEA procedures. The implementation process has become so complex that many academic researchers have applied several analytical methods to evaluate its effectiveness. A prominent field of research includes the design of comparative analyses of the performances displayed by alternative systems, documents, and institutions. Italy has completed the acknowledgement of the Directive through a long legislative process during the period 2006–2010, while only in 2008, SEA procedure' phases have been clearly specified. This delay in the adoption of the Directive's principles is still causing, in general, a poor quality of the application of SEA and, in particular, of the integration of SEA in the processes of construction and approval of spatial plans. On the other side, the number of applications of SEA procedures is increasing over time and introduces relevant changes in the way spatial plans are constructed, participated, approved, and managed. With respect to the framework sketched above, the aim of this paper is to develop a comparative analysis of the level SEA integration within the Italian spatial planning system, by inspecting the case of the provincial strategic spatial plan (Piano Territoriale di Coordinamento Provinciale, PTCP). The arguments unfold as follows. In the next section, a state-of-the-art summary on comparative studies about the application of SEA is presented. Section three focuses on the application of a modified comparative analysis on the level of application of SEA within the PTCPs in Italy. This section includes a description of the institutional framework, a presentation of data collection, and a discussion of the results. Section four concludes this paper by indicating the most relevant results and possible hints for future research studies.

In this section, we report the main findings of this paper and comment on future research issues. The argument starts with a special focus given to the comparison of the Italian case study to the worldwide scenario reported in Section 2, in order to stress possible peculiarities of the Italian provincial practice of SEA processes in strategic spatial planning. Afterwards, a general comment and special issues are discussed concerning current advancement of SEA practice of provincial spatial planning in Italy, as it emerges from the analysis developed in this study. As far as the main criticism about insufficient tiering and integration is concerned, this study reports a high level of integration between SEA and spatial planning in eight out of fourteen processes (see Table 13). This often leads to actual changes of the stages and timeline, according to which spatial plans are designed, discussed, and approved in the direction of a much more accurate consideration of environmental concerns. This study stresses a positive contribution of the Italian SEA practice to the worldwide scenario. Turning to the second relevant concern reported by the international literature about ineffective screening and scoping and insufficient attention for follow-up and monitoring, results indicate that in eleven out of fourteen cases replies to remarks raised during scoping and consultation have influenced positively the PTCP drafting (see Table 15) and in nine out of fourteen cases a periodic SEA monitoring report has been envisaged (see Table 16). These are signs of a good performance of Italian provinces in SEA implementation. With respect to other major criticisms, in eleven out of fourteen cases, no alternative has been proposed (see Table 15): this weakness in the Italian practice confirms a worldwide trend and suggests the urgency of guidelines about the philosophy and techniques of alternative generation and discussion. Moreover, results reveal that in eight out of fourteen cases more than ten meeting were held during the process with the participation of several private and public actors (see Table 14): the performance is fairly good. Another relevant issue is transparency: in nine out of fourteen cases, the SEA controlling and proceeding authorities belong to the same province (see Table 12). This is clearly a crucial point that deserves further discussion and attention to avoid self-evaluation. A final argument concerns transparency and communication; in almost all the cases, dissemination of information about SEA of PTCP occurred through regional bulletin, institutional website and local media. These results testify a very good attitude of Italian provinces to communicate contents and methods of SEA applied to spatial planning instruments. In the remaining part of this section, general and particular research questions are discussed: they provide the researcher with suggestions for further studies. In general terms, it is possible to observe that, after more than ten years from the publication of the Directive, in the Italian provinces, SEA has partially permeated the framework of spatial planning. Results clearly demonstrate that many provinces have yet to set an organization able to define and implement the principles of environmental protection and sustainable development, which stand as requirements for running acceptable SEA processes. In particular, some issues emerge from the analysis developed in this paper. Firstly, the selection of the case studies shows a remarkable concentration in Northern Italy, while Southern Italian provinces are still lagging behind in the application of SEA, as they are mainly in the early stages of the planning procedure. Provinces belonging to Regional administrations that have acknowledged – often times very early – the principles of the Directive have been able to implement and complete the SEA procedure within the planning process. This confirms a phenomenon observed many times: successful SEA implementation relies very much on the broader institutional context. Virtuous experiences are due to a long standing tradition in spatial and regional planning. While in the North nowadays regional spatial planning laws have gone through a number of integrations (see the case of Piedmont, where the regional law has been approved in 1977 and updated seven times until 1997), in the South many times the first law regulating spatial planning is still in force (see the case of Sicily, where the first regional spatial planning law still in force has been approved in 1978 and never updated). Secondly, SEA stimulates public participation, which has been considered via both meetings and advertising. Consultations and comments were recognized as very helpful to better redesign some issues regarding the PTCP. This plan shows a strategic nature: hence the generation of the alternatives is quite a difficult task. The PTCP addresses the general landscape and environmental settings of the whole province according to economic, environmental, and social sustainability requirements, which many times may be perceived as abstract concepts. In this scenario, it is not clear to what extent observations from the public may have been integrated into the planning and SEA framework. Further investigation is needed to understand if the contents of the plan have been properly presented to a public audience largely composed by non-expert participants. Thirdly, monitoring is crucial for measuring the efficiency of the PTCP, i.e. confronting the actual state of the environment with certain standards. Almost all the provinces considered in this work have defined a monitoring plan, which involves a periodical report about the state of the transformations and their effects on the environment. The same report is the main document that stimulates corrections and amendments of the PTCP. Finally, few provinces have established the observatory of the environmental transformations as an agency devoted to drafting the monitoring report. The observatory has been criticized, since its maintenance requires careful institutionalization and regulation. The integration of the observatory within the SEA process along the construction of the PTCP will be even more widespread: the implementation of observatories will surely constitute a fertile area for further research studies on the integration between spatial planning and SEA. Acknowledgments The author is grateful to the reviewers for useful comments on the earlier version of the manuscript. He also thanks immensely Antonio Ledda, Sabrina Lai, and Maurizio Gibin for stimulating discussion and suggestions. The author is supported by the funds received from the Autonomous Region of Sardinia through the research project “Efficacia ed efficienza della governance paesaggistica e territoriale in Sardegna: il ruolo della VAS e delle IDT” [Efficacy and efficiency of the landscape and environmental governance in Sardinia: the role of SEA and of SDI].