SEA IN THE CONTEXT OF LANDTUSE PLANNING

ABSTRACTThe thesis addresses the introduction of a supra-nationalinstrument; a European directive onStrategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) intonational contexts of land-use planning in threecountries; Sweden, Iceland and England. The directive”On the assessment of the effects of certainplans and programmes on the environment” wasagreed upon by the European Commission on the21st of June 2001 and was to be transposed tonational legislation by 21st of June 2004. The introductionof these requirements meant that thecountries needed to make legal adjustments andimplement it at the different levels of planning.Many EU member countries, including those studiedin the thesis, had some experience of environmentalassessment of plans and programmesprior to the introduction of the SEA directive. SEAhas as a concept and a tool in planning in nationaland international debate on Environmental Assessmentand planning for the last two decades.Hence, the SEA directive was introduced to anexisting context of environmental assessment inplanning and the preparation of the directive hasdrawn on substantial conceptual development andpractical experience of strategic environmental assessmentin various forms.The aim of this research is to shed a light on thetransposition of the SEA directive into a nationallegal framework and how the introduction relatesto the countries’ planning contexts and previousapplication of SEA-like instruments. In the thesisan overview is given of the way the directive istransposed to the national legal system of theMiSt Report 62008:11three countries and the existing planning frameworkis described. The results from the nationalreviews are analysed in relation to the contentsof the directive and the international and Nordicacademic debate regarding the purpose and roleof SEA, related to the characteristics of the planningsystem.The research shows differences in the legal andplanning contexts to which the SEA requirementshave been introduced in the three countries. Despiteof those, the legal requirements follow closelythe contents of the directive. However, theexpectations towards the directive expressed bynational officials and politicians, the recommendationsin the way the legal SEA requirements shallbe implemented, differ between the countries aswell as references to other processes; land-useplanning and the practices of Environmental ImpactAssessment and Sustainability Appraisal.The thesis is the result of a project within the interdisciplinaryresearch programme MiSt, “Toolsfor environmental assessment in strategic decisionmaking” at BTH funded by the Swedish EnvironmentalProtection Agency. The project has beencarried out at Nordregio, the Nordic Centre forSpatial Development, Stockholm.Supervisors: professor Lars Emmelin, School ofPlanning, Blekinge Institute of Technology and Tuija-Hilding Rydevik, associate professor, Swedish EIACentre, Department of Urban and Rural Development,Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.ISSN 1650-2140ISBN 978-91-7295-149-5sea in the context of land-use planning Hólmfríður Bjarnadóttír 2008:11