Outcomes and contextual aspects of strategic environmental assessment in a non-mandatory context: the case of Brazil

Introducing SEA effectiveness

“…Peterson and Vahtrus (2019) note that SEA's legal requirements for consultation have widened the 'circle of consultees', though they also identify that levels of public involvement in plan-making and SEA in Estonia are low. This is also reported in Brazil and Thailand, although the role of SEA in improving communication between stakeholders and in achieving legitimacy is acknowledged (Chanchitpricha et al 2019;Tshibangu and Montaño 2019). In Ireland, stakeholder engagement begins early in scoping workshops, but the public generally does not get actively involved (Gonzalez et al 2019).…”

“…In Brazil, Estonia, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia, plans are generally felt to be political in nature, with politicians and planners 'not very open to environmental information' (Partidario and Monteiro 2019) or trying to prevent the SEA from including any negative comments on the plan (Tokarczyk-Dorociak 2019). Assessment scope and performance, as well as integration into decisionmaking are particularly affected by the absence of regulatory frameworks (Chanchitpricha et al 2019;Tshibangu and Montaño 2019). Noble et al (2019) also explain that a lack of regulatory 'hooks' to ensure that SEA findings are implemented has limited the effectiveness of SEA in Canada: 'there is often nobody to tell, nobody is required to listen, and thus few opportunities to learn'.…”

“…Arbter (2019) explains that a series of SEA round tables led to more environmentally and socially sound waste management plans by broadening the debate from incineration to avoidance and disposal. Instead, in Brazil, SEA is largely used to 'ease the approval of large projects' (Tshibangu and Montaño 2019). In Canada, Noble et al (2019) found that 'although many cases [of SEA] were intended to influence higher level [plans] or inform subsequent project [EIA] decisions, few delivered on this objective or contained the formal or legislative means to do so'.…”

“…In Ireland, learning is mostly apparent in land-use planning as a result of regular plan review requirements; however, longer-term learning can be limited by staff changes and the consequent loss of institutional memory (Gonzalez et al 2019). This is also an issue in Brazil given the 'transience of public administrators' (Tshibangu and Montaño 2019). Similarly, in Portugal SEA practitioners 'know about the "legal tool".…”

Environmental and Health Risk Assessment (Ehra) Approaches in the Strategic Environmental Risk Assessment (Sea) : A Metaanalysis

“…We identified one the most important strategic features in SEAs related with the concept of risk: there should be explorations of alternatives or strategic options that can influence the decision making in the planning sector to move towards sustainability (Noble et al, 2019;Partidario and Monteiro, 2019). In SEAs, environmental issues were taken into account and the consideration of alternative variants and the identification of potential negative impacts, social, spatial and environmental conflicts were (Andrade and Santos, 2015;Phylip-Jones and Fischer, 2015;Geißler et al, 2019;Tshibangu and Montaño, 2019). A review paper exploring ten decades of SEA applications also states that the identification and evaluation of alternatives in SEA is a way to decide for more sustainable PPP options.…”