Strategic environmental assessment

The Strategic Environmental Assessment ( short SUP ) or " Plan- Environmental Assessment " (in short: Plan- UP) - misleadingly known as Strategic Environmental Assessment or Plan- Environmental Impact Assessment - is through an EU Directive ( 2001/42/EC ) provided, systematic examination procedure with the environmental aspects of strategic planning and the design of programs to be investigated. Typical applications are regional development plans, development plans, traffic concepts, waste management plans, energy concepts, tourism programs, etc.

History and purpose

The SEA can be seen in the context of ( Project ) Environmental Impact Assessment ( EIA). The EIA was also determined by an EC directive, by the - by now several times, most recently by the Public Participation Directive ( 2003/35/EC ) amended - EIA Directive ( 85/337/EEC ).

The EIA Directive requires that environmental consequences of projects prior to their approval (Approval, etc.) must be identified and tested. But also provides only that they should be examined in the process; it does not specify material standards, according to which any effects require a particular response ( quite unlike, for example, the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive). In Germany, the EIA Directive has been implemented in particular by the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment ( EIA Act ); for land-use planning was a reaction in the Building Code ( Building Code ).

The MSRP is only on project ( to authorization ) to level ( = level of regulatory approval of the individual project, such as a chemical plant ). In which areas but projects with significant environmental effects may be realized and should, as a rule, upstream already in one of the project planning approval process ( land use planning, transport planning, for example ) determined conclusively. Since the anticipated environmental effects of a project depend in very significant ways from the location where the individual projects to be implemented (eg, the effects of a pharmaceutical factory in a romantic forest and lake area certainly different than in an inner city wasteland near the train station ), and choosing this location already at the chart level, but does not take place only at the project level, the German legislature has already decided before the adoption of the SEA Directive to, for example, to subject specific development plans of the EIA, as it - simply put - at project level ultimately is too late to consider the environmental impacts of the proposed projects.

The EC has seen this so - especially after the Aarhus Convention and the so-called Espoo Convention on environmental impacts in transboundary context Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context ( Espoo, 1991) entered into force - the Espoo ( EIA) Convention that has laid the foundations for the introduction of the SEA. Prior to that considerations of regional development / land use planning, which in 1981 established the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD ), as in 1981, the area -wide impact assessment guidebook published.

Therefore, it was created with the SEA Directive in general the framework for this already to check on the level of plans and programs "strategic foresight " the environmental impacts that may arise from the planned projects, the effects of which have been tested at the chart level, no longer in to examine the EIA (so-called stratification ). Conversely, it is actually also possible the assessment of the effects of the SEA on the EIA to relocate ( Example: In the development plan a chemical factory is enabled, the site is checked in the SUP, the effects of the chemicals used only to project approval level). This stratification is "up" and " down " is readily possible for SEA and EIA have the same goals and should therefore be regarded as a single test.

The EU (then the European Community ), the SEA has ordered by the SEA Directive ( 2001/42/EC ). Guidelines by adopting its own legal provisions of the Member States of the Union (possibly even separately for sectors such as in the area of ​​urban land ) to implement. Up to 20-21. July 2004 would the Directive must be implemented. Meanwhile, this is also largely happened in the 25 Member States.

In Germany, the reaction was carried out firstly by the Law on Strategic Environmental Assessment ( SUPG ), which has completed the Environmental Impact Assessment Act ( Act of 24 June 2005, in force since 29 June 2005 - Federal Law Gazette I p 1746 ), and by the European Law Amendment Act construction ( EAG Bau ), the SEA for land-use planning in the building Code ( there as so-called "Environmental Assessment (EA ) " ) has integrated (from June 24, 2004, in force since July 20, 2004 - Federal Law Gazette I p 1359 ).

Mid-2006, should the application and effectiveness of the SEA Directive will be reviewed by the European Commission.

Structure of the SEA

The focus of SEA is on plans and programs, as well as policies, the latter are not explicitly mentioned in the SEA Directive. The structure is modeled on that of the EIA, ie we have the following phases:

• Determination of the SEA Pflichtigkeit, if necessary preliminary examination of the case ( screening); Development plans are generally subject to SEA
• Delimitation of the scope of testing, defining the level of detail and determination of boundary conditions ( scoping )
• Survey and assessment of the actual state ( state of the environment, including existing loads )
• Identification and documentation of the ( presumably significant ) environmental impact in a report ( § 14g UVPG )
• Information and, if necessary, consultation of the authorities and the public an opportunity to comment. This includes the to-understand summary that has the aim of presenting the plan and its impact on the environment in a text understandable to non-specialists.
• Not: decision-making. The SEA has only to inform the target, managers and the public about the likely impacts of plans and programs on the environment; the decision on the plan itself or through compensation measures under the full consideration, ie the policy-making process about the plan.
• Monitoring the significant effects on the environment after its implementation (monitoring)

After the SEA Directive are examined for material values ​​and archaeological sites in addition to the impact on the natural environment, including humans and such.