Box 12B Strategic environmental assessment

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is the term used to describe the environmental assessment process for policies, plans and programmes. The concept of SEA evolved from two decades of experience and debate on the implementation of environmental impact assessment (EIA) in the authorisation process of individual projects. The recent growth of interest in the use of environmental assessment at earlier stages of the planning process stems from two sources (Lee and Walsh, 1992):

  1. a growing recognition that some important aspects of environmental assessment cannot be satisfactorily undertaken at the project evaluation stage (EIA) and must, therefore, be carried out earlier in the planning process;
  2. increased appreciation that the implementation of sustainable development strategies will require the use of environmental assessment procedures and methods in the formulation of policies, plans and programmes for the principal sectors of national economies.

SEA and EIA share the same objectives, should relate to each other closely within the same policy and planning process, and are intended to be complementary. However, while formal provisions for EIA as an integral element of project approval and decision-making now exist in many countries and are included in the procedures of many development agencies and financial institutions, formal provisions for SEA, as an integral element of appraisal and decision-making for policies, plans and programmes, are much less developed.

Without a formal provision, SEA is already used in both sector and landuse planning in several countries. Others are in the process of adopting procedures for incorporating some form of environmental assessment into the early stages of the planning process. More are carrying out studies into the desirability and practicability of doing so. The need to articulate such principles in specific procedures and methodologies has emerged as countries have started to put this approach into practice.