Strategic Environmental Assessment of Spatial Land-Use Plans

The majority of SEAs undertaken in Europe and globally relate to spatial planning. Legislative requirements to prepare national, regional and local land-use plans, and their periodic review, renders the sector a good ground for examining SEA practice. The wide range of planning considerations and the variability of scope, content and level of detail in spatial land-use plans calls for a tailored approach to effectively embed environmental considerations into any planning decisions. As a result, a range of SEA approaches and methods are applied across the sector. These are often determined by the planning level, with e.g. national plans commonly relying on objectives-led participative approaches and local plans usually benefiting from more quantitative and data-rich spatial analyses. Research is also driving the development of more advanced exploratory assessment methods that enable examination of ‘what if’ scenarios. A distinctive characteristic of land-use planning SEA is its relative integration; in many systems SEA and plan-making are generally well-embedded processes. This is facilitated by long-established public consultation and tiering requirements within the planning system, for example, and by the extensive SEA experience in the sector.