Strategic Environmental Assessment and spatial planning in Italy: sustainability, integration and democracy

This paper investigates the application of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) to spatial planning in Italy. We discuss SEA effectiveness by focusing on three main dimensions: sustainable development, environmental policy integration and democratic governance. The methodology includes the analysis of 27 SEA reports and interviews with key actors. Findings suggest that SEA is beginning to insinuate ecological rationality and improving environmental policy integration across planning levels and disciplinary boundaries. SEA also leads to progress in transparency and communication, whereas the actual involvement of the public in decision making is still weak. Future developments may address the potential contribution of SEA to focusing planning on long-term, shared, visions of socio-ecological systems.

[1]  E. João,et al.  The Utopian Goal Of Attempting To Deliver Environmental Justice Using Sea , 2011 .

[2]  C. Rega,et al.  Strategic Environmental Assessment And The Democratisation Of Spatial Planning , 2011 .

[3]  Kelly A. Tzoumis,et al.  Comparing the quality of draft environmental impact statements by agencies in the United States since 1998 to 2004 , 2007 .

[4]  J. Arts,et al.  Making an Impact through Partnerships , 2011 .

[5]  Marie Hanusch,et al.  Strategic environmental assessment: the state of the art , 2012 .

[6]  Thomas Fischer,et al.  Reviewing the quality of strategic environmental assessment reports for English spatial plan core strategies , 2010 .

[7]  O. Bina.  A critical review of the dominant lines of argumentation on the need for strategic environmental assessment , 2007 .

[8]  Matthew Asa Cashmore.  The contribution of environmental assessment to sustainable development , 2007 .

[9]  Paola Gazzola,et al.  Enhancing Environmental Appraisal Effectiveness: Towards an Understanding of Internal Context Conditions in Organisational Learning , 2011 .

[10]  F. Moore,et al.  War and Peace , 1918, Nature.

[11]  Jon Coaffee,et al.  'My Voice: My Place': Tracking Transformations in Urban Governance , 2003 .

[12]  R. Therivel.  Appropriate assessment of plans in England , 2009 .

[13]  Eivind Hovden,et al.  Environmental policy integration: towards an analytical framework , 2003 .

[14]  Robert V. Bartlett,et al.  The Theory of Environmental Impact Assessment: Implicit models of policy making , 1999 .

[15]  Making Environmental Policy , 1995 .

[16]  Maria Rosário Partidário,et al.  Development of a framework to assist the integration of environmental, social and economic issues in spatial planning , 2000 .

[17]  Francesca Gelli.  Planning Systems in Italy within the Context of New Processes of 'Regionalization' , 2001 .

[18]  Riki Therivel,et al.  Sustainability-focused impact assessment: English experiences , 2009 .

[19]  Peter Hardi,et al.  Assessing sustainable development : principles in practice , 1997 .

[20]  Bert Bras,et al.  Environmental Management and Assessment , 2001 .

[21]  Abdul Khakee,et al.  Evaluation and planning: inseparable concepts , 1998 .

[22]  Roel Slootweg,et al.  Resilience thinking improves SEA: a discussion paper , 2011 .

[23]  E. Wilson,et al.  Strategic Environmental Assessment , 1992 .

[24]  Hens Runhaar,et al.  What makes strategic environmental assessment successful environmental assessment? The role of context in the contribution of SEA to decision-making , 2007 .

[25]  J. Last.  Our common future. , 1987, Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique.

[26]  J. Arts,et al.  SEA follow-up Exploring the concept of strategic environmental assessment follow-up , 2005 .

[27]  Paula J. Posas,et al.  Exploring climate change criteria for strategic environmental assessments , 2011 .

[28]  Paola Gazzola,et al.  SEA effectiveness criteria—equally valid in all countries? The case of Italy , 2006 .

[29]  Henk Voogd,et al.  Planning in tiers? Tiering as a way of linking SEA and EIA , 2012 .

[30]  A. Khakee,et al.  Negotiative land-use and deliberative environmental planning in Italy and Sweden , 2003 .

[31]  Tuija Hilding-Rydevik,et al.  Context awareness and sensitivity in SEA implementation , 2007 .

[32]  T. Richardson,et al.  Value-driven SEA: time for an environmental justice perspective? ☆ , 2005 .

[33]  Gerda Falkner,et al.  Modes of governance: towards a conceptual clarification , 2007 .

[34]  David P. Lawrence,et al.  Planning theories and environmental impact assessment , 2000 .

[35]  Nicoletta Stame,et al.  Governance, Democracy and Evaluation , 2006 .

[36]  Remedios,et al.  COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES , 1601 .

[37]  V. Baird,et al.  Of Time and Causality: A Simple Test of the Requirement of Social Capital in Making Democracy Work in Italy , 2006 .

[38]  J. Greene.  War and Peace … and Evaluation , 2003 .

[39]  Jean-Philippe Waaub,et al.  Public participation in strategic environmental assessment (SEA): Critical review and the Quebec (Canada) approach , 2011 .

[40]  Lorne A. Greig,et al.  Scenario analysis in environmental impact assessment: Improving explorations of the future , 2007 .

[41]  Maria Rosário Partidário,et al.  Elements of an SEA framework— improving the added-value of SEA , 2000 .

[42]  Sibout Nooteboom,et al.  The success of SEA in the Dutch planning practice: How formal assessments can contribute to collaborative governance , 2010 .

[43]  Hens Runhaar,et al.  Evaluating the substantive effectiveness of SEA: Towards a better understanding , 2013 .

[44]  Norman Lee,et al.  Evidence-based policy-making in Europe: an evaluation of European Commission integrated impact assessments , 2006 .

[45]  Prue Taylor,et al.  The Earth Charter , 2010 .

[46]  William R. Sheate,et al.  Implementing the SEA Directive: sectoral challenges and opportunities for the UK and EU , 2004 .

[47]  Anders Hanberger.  Evaluation of and for Democracy , 2006 .

[48]  Silvio Funtowicz,et al.  ‘Democratising’ expertise, ‘expertising’ democracy: What does this mean, and why bother? , 2003 .

[49]  T. Fischer.  Strategic environmental assessment in post-modern times , 2003 .

[50]  Arwin van Buuren,et al.  Evaluating strategic environmental assessment in The Netherlands: content, process and procedure as indissoluble criteria for effectiveness , 2009 .

[51]  Alfons Bora,et al.  Final Report to the European Commission , 2004 .

[52]  Riki Therivel,et al.  Strategic Environmental Assessment in Action , 2004 .

[53]  Nathaniel Lichfield,et al.  CHAPTER 1 – Evaluation and Planning , 1975 .

[54]  S. Jasanoff.  Science and citizenship: a new synergy , 2004 .