Decision criteria for the identification of alternatives in strategic environmental assessment

The European Union Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive requires the assessment of likely significant effects on the environment of implementing plans or programmes and reasonable alternatives. While Irish SEA regulations and guidelines emphasise rigour and objectivity in the assessment of alternatives they have little to say on the actual identification of alternatives. Therefore, criteria should be established that would aid decision-makers in the identification of alternatives appropriate to the tier of decision-making. A methodology is set out in this paper for identifying generic SEA alternatives for a proposed plan or programme. Specifically, the methodology includes a set of alternatives identification criteria. The outputs from this methodology will help focus on the identification of more sustainable alternatives for SEA.

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