SEA IN THE CONTEXT OF LANDTUSE PLANNING

plans at the municipal level (Impact Assessment in Sweden, Environmental Assessment inIceland and Sustainability Appraisal in England). Sweden and Iceland have had statutoryrequirements on assessment at strategic levels sine 1997.In Sweden a requirements on municipal authorities to account for the impacts ofmunicipal comprehensive plans was introduced to the Planning and Building Act in 1997.According to the PBA the assessment should combine assessments of environmental, socialand economical aspects and the impacts or consequences of a plan must be stated clearly inthe planning document and must be available during the public participation process. Therequirements are however not specific in respect of the contents, extent or the methodologyused in the impact assessment and the numerous impact assessments that have been carriedout represent a broad scope of assessments. The impact assessment demands resulted in onlya small number of Swedish municipal authorities carrying out environmental assessment oftheir municipal comprehensive plans (Bjarnadóttir and Åkerskog 2003). Prior to therequirements in the PBA several examples of voluntary conduction of the an environmentalassessment process can be found that resembles SEA (Asplund and Hilding-Rydevik 1996b).Voluntary conduction of environmental assessment has also taken place in sector planning,most notable the transport sector. The practice of environmental assessment has beenactively encouraged by national governmental agencies, including the National Board ofHousing, Building and Planning and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, theNational Heritage Board and the Swedish Road Administration that have carried out studiesillustrating and reviewing existing practice, as well as prepared guidelines on the conductionof SEA. Reviews of the application of impact assessment in municipal plans have shown thatthe way that the practices of Impact Assessment varied greatly as regard to their contents andscope, some focused exclusively on the environmental impacts, while others resembled moresustainability assessments. The way that the results were documented was furthermore oftennegligent and the way that the results of the assessment was considered in the decisionmaking process furthermore unclear (Bjarnadóttir and Åkerskog 2003, Åkerskog 2006).It can be claimed that in Iceland the ‘ethos’ of strategic environmental assessment hadbeen embraced by the national planning authorities prior to the requirements of the directive(Skipulagsstofnun 2003). Several examples of SEA initiatives can be found at the municipaland regional level and environmental assessment was actively encouraged by the nationalPlanning Agency in the form of pilot studies as early as 1990. The earliest voluntaryassessments for plans that were carried out in areas faced with planning conflicts and whereSEA was used as an additional decision-making support to the statutory planning process.However, most examples of environmental assessments were conducted after the year 2000and were conducted on land use planning proposals at the municipal level. A few assessmentwere also carried out on regional land use plans and plans for infrastructure projects. Thoselater examples were carried out after the environmental assessment provisions introduced inthe Planning and Building Act of 1998, and most of the SEA trials have been conducted inthe basis of these requirements. Furthermore, integrated SEA was actively encouraged by thenational Planning Agency, which provided support and advice and prepared guidelines,including the usage of strategic environmental assessment.Prior to the introduction of the EU Directive, England had no statutory provisions forSEA. Nevertheless, several types of SEA processes had emerged during the 1990s includingappraisal of national policies, environmental appraisal (later sustainability appraisal) of localand regional development plans and ad-hoc SEAs were carried out in specific sectors such astransport plans and water management plans. The national authorities have encouraged thepreparation of Sustainability Appraisal through the preparation of guidelines, as well as theimportance of sustainability appraisal is highlighted in the first and revised UK strategies for103