Widening the scope: strategic environmental assessment - Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment - page 359

It is, in other words, a form of EIA for PPPs, keeping in mind that evaluating
environmental impacts at a strategic level is not necessarily the same as evaluating them
at a project level.
Several things are important in Sadler and Verheem's definition. First, SEA is a
process, not a snapshot at the end of a process. It should take place in parallel with the
plan-making process, providing environmental information at all relevant stages.
Figure 12.1 Links between SEA and
the PPP-making process.
The definition also emphasizes the importance of integrating SEA in decision-making.
Figure 12.1 shows the links between PPP-making and SEA.
The definition distinguishes between policies, plans and programmes (PPPs).
Although they are often lumped together in the SEA literature, PPPs are not the same
things, and may require quite different forms of SEA. A policy is generally defined as an
inspiration and guidance for action (e.g. “to supply electricity to meet the nation's
demands”), a plan as a set of coordinated and timed objectives for the implementation of
the policy (e.g. “to build X megawatts of new electricity generating capacity by 2012”),
and a programme as a set of projects in a particular area (e.g. “to build four new
Combined Cycle Gas Turbine power stations in region Y by 2012”) (Wood 1991). In this
chapter, policies, plans and programmes will jointly be referred to as PPPs. PPPs can
relate to specific sectors (e.g. transport, mineral extraction) or to all activities in a given
area (e.g. land use, development or territorial plans).
In theory PPPs are tiered: a policy provides a framework for the establishment of
plans, plans provide frameworks for programmes, programmes lead to projects. In
practice, these tiers are amorphous and fluid, without clear boundaries. SEAs for these
different PPP tiers can themselves be tiered, as we show in Figure 12.2, so that issues
considered at higher tiers need not be reconsidered at the lower tiers. PPPs can also result