Strategic environmental assessment

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is a systematic decision support process, aiming to ensure that environmental and possibly other sustainability aspects are considered effectively in policy, plan and programme making. In this context, following Fischer (2007) SEA may be seen as:

Effective SEA works within a structured and tiered decision framework,aiming to support more effective and efficient decision-making for sustainable development and improved governance by providing for a substantive focus regarding questions, issues and alternatives to be considered in policy, plan and programme (PPP) making.

SEA is an evidence-based instrument, aiming to add scientific rigour to PPP making, by using suitable assessment methods and techniques. Ahmed and Sanchez Triana (2008) developed an approach to the design and implementation of public policies that follows a continuous process rather than as a discrete intervention.

The European Union Directive on Environmental Impact Assessments (85/337/EEC, known as the EIA Directive) only applied to certain projects. This was seen as deficient as it only dealt with specific effects at the local level whereas many environmentally damaging decisions had already been made at a more strategic level (for example the fact that new infrastructure may generate an increased demand for travel).

The concept of strategic assessments originated from regional development / land use planning in the developed world. In 1981 the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department published the Area-wide Impact Assessment Guidebook. In Europe the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context the so-called Espoo Convention laid the foundations for the introduction of SEA in 1991. In 2003, the Espoo Convention was supplemented by a Protocol on Strategic Environmental Assessment.

The European SEA Directive 2001/42/EC required that all member states of the European Union should have ratified the Directive into their own country's law by 21 July 2004.

Countries of the EU started implementing the land use aspects of SEA first, some took longer to adopt the directive than others, but the implementation of the directive can now be seen as completed. Many EU nations have a longer history of strong Environmental Appraisal including Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden. The newer member states to the EU have hurried in implementing the directive.

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