Analysing strategic environmental assessment. Towards better decision-making

Abstract:
The growing and ever widening application of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is set to accelerate following the EC Directive 2001/42/EC of June 2001. It has already impacted upon the environmental-related policies of Member States. Analytical Strategic Environmental Assessment (ANSEA) offers an opportunity to open a more extensive discussion on environmental assessment, decision-making theories and policy analysis.

The work is divided into three parts. Part one concentrates upon the development of the conceptual background of the ANSEA approach and contains a review of the different decision theories and policy analysis streams. Part two turns to the methodology of ANSEA and seeks to present the practical outcome of the approach. It aims to clarify how the ANSEA concepts might be integrated in real assessments of PPPs (policies, plans and programmes), and introduces a sequence of seven methodological steps as a possible framework for the assessment of the decision-making process. Part three has two explicatory examples of the ANSEA approach based on the information collected and processed in two of the eight case studies developed within the ANSEA project. Through the step-by-step application of the ANSEA approach they analyse the significant environmental implications of specific decision-making processes.

The work will interest environmental policy-makers in all EU Member States, researchers, academics and consultants in the fields of planning, environmental evaluation and environmental management.

Contents:
Part I: ANSEA Theoretical Background
1. Background and Context of a Strategic Environmental Assessment
2. Setting the Ground for a New Approach to SEA
3. SEA and Decision-Making Sciences
4. ANSEA Concepts

Part II: The ANSEA Approach
5. ANSEA’s Steps
6. Relating ANSEA to the European Directive on SEA

Part III: Illustrating the ANSEA Approach in Practice
7. Practical Illustrations of the ANSEA Approach
8. Case Study – The German Federal Transport Infrastructure Planning (FTIP)
9. Case Study – Urban Planning in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife Island, Spain