Strategic environmental assessment integrating landscape and urban planning

UNIPA Springer Series

Fabio Cutaia

Strategic Environmental
Assessment: Integrating
Landscape and Urban
Planning


UNIPA Springer Series
Editor-in-chief
Carlo Amenta, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Series editors
Sebastiano Bavetta, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Calogero Caruso, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Gioacchino Lavanco, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Bruno Maresca, Università di Salerno, Fisciano, Italy
Andreas Öchsner, Griffith School of Engineering, Southport Queensland, Australia
Mariacristina Piva, Università Cattolica Sacro Cuore, Piacenza, Italy
Roberto Pozzi Mucelli, Policlinico G.B.Rossi, Verona, Italy
Antonio Restivo, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Norbert M. Seel, University of Freiburg, Germany, Germany
Gaspare Viviani, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy


More information about this series at />

Fabio Cutaia

Strategic Environmental

Assessment: Integrating
Landscape and Urban
Planning

123


Fabio Cutaia
University of Palermo
Palermo
Italy

ISSN 2366-7516
UNIPA Springer Series
ISBN 978-3-319-42131-5
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42132-2

ISSN 2366-7524

(electronic)

ISBN 978-3-319-42132-2

(eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016943826
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Foreword 1

In his analysis, Cutaia believes that Strategic Environmental Assessment
(SEA) could be correctly addressed, realised and implemented only through participative processes integrated within town planning. The recourse to participation
bereft of rhetoric is necessary because its “value”, ever present at the centre of the
evaluation, is an expression of judgement belonging to those directly involved in
the process of transformation—in this case, the landscape. The same notion is valid
for the town plan, but the two kinds of activities—SEA and plan/project of the
landscape—present different yet complementary characteristics with several agents
assuming adhesive roles or being the main factor of integration.
The use of participation in SEA is indispensable, useful and convenient, being:
(a) Necessary: in order to define matters and degrees of values regarding agents
and their individual perspectives, so as to understand the range of effects in a
shared way, also increasing transparency and comprehension of the evaluative
methodology implemented by the technical–scientific field;
(b) Useful: because due to the involvement of different territorial transformations

agents in the evaluation procedure, we can specifically define the acquisition
of data, use of tools and individuation of indicator arrays according to the
goals, enrichment methods and instrumental resources of the evaluation in
itself in respect of the plan or project of landscape;
(c) Convenient: because the participative process integrates the objectives of the
evaluators (knowledge and transparency for decision-making) with beneficiaries of transformations (partisan advantages of the local system), improving
the delimitation of the analytical field and conferring qualification to the
landscape in the plan project. Planning creates the basic conditions for the
transformation of the town, landscape and whole territory, while the evaluation contributes to the planning process, qualifying the project through the
construction and comparison of different visions and scenarios.
The evaluation increases the value of the landscape project, above all through the
careful and in-depth exploration of the prevision offered by the plan alternatives.

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vi

Foreword 1

When such exploration of alternatives is conducted within informal and institutional
participative paths of landscape transformation, it directly takes place inside an
evaluative process including technical and administrative authorisations and political decisions.
Considering the landscape as dynamic and complex anthropologic data, the
evaluation cannot assume a mere empiric basis, but should be supported by roles
and analytical methods scientifically founded, noticed and accessible on an international level. Regarding the evaluation of specific local transformation phenomena, data must be searched for on each occasion, implicating the construction of
knowledge, above all regarding the use of specific resources by local agents.
Nowadays, the typology of “institutional planning”, with exception to the Italian
case, is everywhere recursive/circular and based on the interaction between proposers and beneficiaries, even before the implementation of the plan processes.
Therefore, SEA is inserted into the planning structure in a gradual and incremental

way, without huge innovations or procedural surprises in the regulation of the
relationships among the agents of the transformations.
Cutaia’s research presents two study cases in which the level of participation is
different and with them can be found the success of the landscape transformation
projects. Linearity and circularity of the analytical and strategic visioning approaches are compared and examined, underlining with effectiveness the success and
failures in landscape terms through the different manners in which the plans were
addressed and implemented. The thesis suggests the prevalence of “urban and
regional planning” in respect of “strategic planning” and the implementation of
“placed-based” policies. This is because, outside institutional planning, the design
approach to be shared is merely reduced to the analysis or validation of individual
projects in the wider frame of the transformations contemplated by the landscape
plan. In the conclusion, the continued relationship and the reciprocal mutualisation
between plan, evaluation and landscape are highlighted. Given that landscape
requires a multi-scale and multi-objective integrated approach, both the institutional
planning and that of the landscape sector are present near the strategic planning in a
directly related way within a legal procedure. In each typology of strategic plan,
eventually we find reference to juridical norms surrounding land use, which makes
possible the concrete realisation of strategic visions through systemic or individual
projects in several landscapes. In urban planning, despite the guarantee of institutional processes, the roles of subjects are attendant or dependant on the
decision-makers. With political crises across Europe (especially regarding electoral
and voting turnouts), urban planning is often perceived as a discipline that creates
more problems than it is able to resolve. Planning, in its acceptation of “strategic”,
uses a circular model as in the case of SEA with the implementation of the general
model named DPSIR. In order to attain effectiveness at an institutional level, it
requires a tight relationship with the traditional town plan, which is instead based
on linear models—not recursive. We must not consider SEA merely an environmental compatibility procedure because it is a constructive path of politic consensus
regarding a common future desirable and reachable.


Foreword 1

vii

Environmental analysis is included in the wider environmental assessment as a
constitutive part, ever orientated to the qualification of the relationship with the
traditional plan, in order to aim for its effective implementation. Therefore, without
urban planning, SEA remains a simple study unable to have a direct bearing on the
management of landscape transformations. Meanwhile, the plan, in order to enjoy
real participation without being rhetoric-specious, has to be constructed from the
beginning of the environmental assessment process. A better hypothesis is to
simultaneously implement the planning of interventions linked to environmental
risk (such as hydrogeological instability, earthquakes, and eruptions) to both SEA
and the urban planning process. For these reasons, we ought to assume SEA as a
base for the urban and the environmental risk plans. In fact, this set of plans for land
usage risks and regulations supported by strategic dimensions (explicitly or
exclusively according to competitiveness and impossible in the case of the traditional regulative plan) could represent innovative modalities of spatial planning
instruments, determinant in order to manage and resolve numerous arising conflicts
during the governing of landscape transformations. Risk, urban and extra-urban
land uses and strategies could be kept together by SEA as a sustainable guarantee
both of the rules and of the innovation projects of the state of the natural and
anthropogenic ecosystem. Cutaia intents to convince the reader that urban planning
and SEA are, in fact, inseparable.
The tight relationship between SEA and plans demonstrates that the value of the
environmental dimension must necessary be related to other anthropogenic
dimensions (including economic, cultural and social). This is important in order to
avoid the possibility of planning choices, assuming a characteristic of technocracy
or another bereft of democracy. The determinism of the environmental sciences
cannot be automatically translated into political choices. Shifting focus from the
plan to the evaluation, not pertaining to the general environmental assessment but
merely to SEA regarding the different kinds of plans (included those of landscape),

we have to distinguish some aspects of the evaluation procedure in respect of the
planning discipline.
Evaluation can be interpreted as a kind of analysis able to include both the
analytical/provisional plan dimension and that of its implementation in the landscape transformation process. Therefore, the evaluation procedure can be considered as a specific analytical field, a frame of construction of the relationship among
agents, of the effects that take place on an institutional level and as evaluative
process in respect of the plan. The evaluation can guarantee the relationship-based
conditions and the contribution of the agents involved in the transformations
decisively qualifying and validating the evaluation itself. From Cutaia’s research,
we can relieve the centrality of SEA institutionalisation, seen in different evaluative
examples in the specific sectors of the landscape. In front of the landscape matter,
intended as an object of planning activity, the peculiarity of evaluative judgements
cannot merely be assumed in the descriptions of the plan alternatives. The reflection
of the different values in play, from a strategic point of view, implicates a reconsideration of the logical trajectories that cannot be reduced to functional schematisations produced by deterministic approaches. In evaluations, values perceived by


viii

Foreword 1

individuals involved in the plan often take the field, forcing a decision between the
alternatives on offer and the contradictions of the individual partisan positions. In
this case, we cannot consider out-and-out alternatives, but all plausible actions,
respecting the values of the singular agents involved. The research of Cutaia
highlights the importance and complexity of the reflective and participative paths
required by SEA for landscape transformation management, in spite of the continuing recourse regarding topics scientifically identified and argued.
The disciplinary—rather than scientific—dimension prevails although data and
material used in the evaluation (in prevalent measures) and the planning (in variable
measures) are determined; this is due to the fact that their instrumental use is limited
to specific practices and politics, in which the uncertainty and the incremental
natural of the tools implemented are determinant.

Cutaia started from the landscape in order to confer a constitutive sense to
participative planning. From a disciplinary planning perspective, he had to align
himself with the environmental evaluation, underlining the SEA procedure in
reason of its intrinsic correlation to the planning action. Participation is the adhesive
of multi-agent and multi-objective planning. The interests of the research did not
focus on the participation procedure itself; through the reading of the study cases, it
is a somewhat unavoidable result of a path concentrated on the analysis of planning
potentiality surrounding landscape problems. Furthermore, the work marks a
research perspective on the theoretical bases of landscape indicator construction. In
respect of environmental indicators, these are differentiated by their connections
with the relationship-based capability typical of the agents involved in the evaluation in the plan of the landscape.
The contribution of the evaluation is recognisable in the disciplinary way in
which all scientific data and knowledge avoid false expectations. They unmask the
purely rhetorical arguments while specifying dimensions of deterministic certainty
in respect of communication fluxes and reflections, constantly demanded by the
uncertainty dominating the sphere of the plan’s political actions. The level of
ambiguity could be notably increased in landscape planning, requiring recourse
more frequent than the rhetoric-bereft participation in the planning process.
Cutaia displays sensitivity for the etic topic of the centrality of a human in
relation to the social life of the community, deeply present not only in the planning
field. The resident community not only asks for environmental sustainability, but
also undertakes research into solutions to problems about equity distribution. Cutaia
shows attentiveness towards matters of human dignity, which cannot be put in the
second plan with respect to the deterministic reading of the exact sciences. Perhaps,
there is consonance with a recent declaration by Jorge Mario Bergoglio in the
European Parliament in Strasbourg: respecting nature also calls for the recognition
that man himself is a fundamental part of it. Along with an environmental ecology,
there is also need for human ecology consisting in respect for the person.
Ferdinando Trapani
University of Palermo, Italy

Foreword 2

Among the questions still open concerning the Strategic Environmental Assessment
of urban plans, certainly one of the most complex is represented by the evaluation
of their effects on the landscape. It presents complex profiles for two reasons: the
first being ascribable to the historical dichotomy between urban planning on one
hand and landscape on the other; the second connected to the prevalent aesthetic
approach that characterises landscape studies, which makes the application of the
quantitative methods often employed in Strategic Environmental Assessment
objectively difficult.
Aside from these considerations, the work presented by Fabio Cutaia reaches,
through close examination of the open questions and two study cases, a first systematisation of the matter. Although complete response to the different starting
questions is not permitted, it constitutes an important contribution to the construction of practical protocols the Strategic Environmental Assessment must abide
by when it finally attains operating speed. For these reasons, the work is a worthy
aid for scholars and technicians interested in Strategic Environmental Assessment.
Additionally, it can benefit every kind of operator in the landscape field because of
its contents and characteristics, which include the reconstruction of the most recent
normative frame and the new techniques implemented in the analysis and planning
of the landscape.
The reasoning of Cutaia starts from an assumption: the introduction of the
landscape dimension in the strategic evaluation can represent, following the clarification of particular ambiguities, the opportunity for the definitive convergence of
urbanism with landscape—or rather, to use an expression employed in the previous
research, to achieve an “armistice in the war of position” between urbanism and
landscape. In fact, still today, in spite of numerous attempts at adhesion of urbanism
issues—and more generally of planning—with those of landscape and regarding
matters related to its interpretation and modification, we cannot affirm that a full
integration between the two disciplines has occurred. Stiff sectorial laws remain
within the legal procedures of the majority of European countries—above all in the

Mediterranean area. Even less encouraging is a clear institutional separation of

ix


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Foreword 2

competence between respective ministers appointed to landscape protection and
urban planning due to different technical and cultural educations of the subjects
working within the two areas. Since such integration difficulty exists, there is
certainly a class of reason merely conceptual and philosophical, conducted to
perceive the landscape in aesthetical and historical terms, scarcely concerning
planning and protection.
Strategic Environmental Assessment, given that it forces town planners to ask
questions of themselves regarding urban effects on the landscape, can represent a
good opportunity for the correct integration between the two disciplines. Evaluating
the effects of plans on the landscape requires overcoming the traditional dichotomy
of urban methods along with those of landscape planning and therefore achieving
unity—with the inclusion of administrative plans—of two perpetually divided
concepts. This would finally allow the demise of the unacceptable subjectivity
characterising the judgements of landscape compatibility, often expressed in an
extremely monocratic form by the voices in force for protection.
The opportunity to integrate knowledge regarding “landscape state” within a
structured knowledge of “environmental state” is a challenge that Strategic
Environmental Assessment could meet. In order to obtain this, it is evidently
necessary to introduce, in the tool chest of the urban and landscape planner spatial,
instruments until now rarely or not at all used. It is necessary that urban planners
overcome the rigidly bidimensional vision typical of rationalist plans and create

tools able to manage territorial transformations with full awareness of their effects
on the environment and landscape. Moreover, it is necessary that landscape planners move past the vision based on restrictive approaches in their landscape plans,
instead paying attention to projecting the landscape. Cutaia, in his work, individuates the “landscape indicators” a tool allowing both the renovation of cognitive
and operative equipment. The landscape indicators, although included in the wider
system of environmental indicators, have their peculiar complexity, which derives
from the difficulty in separating the different phenomena that generate transformations, as in the case of indicators related to environmental factors: air, water, soil,
etc. Instead, the landscape study requires, as affirmed by Cutaia, a holistic approach
that could allow consideration of the complexity of the system, in spite of its
numerous individual components. It is the real reason motivating the definition of
indicators characterised by a certain degree of significance and ease of implementation. Therefore, there is an urgent need to review the paradigms underpinning
urban planning and landscape protection disciplines, with a view to how these can
be unified or converged nowadays. This is the reason which remains the basis of
this work: to observe the opportunities offered by the Strategic Environmental
Assessment normative frame and its implementation in order to find a way of
guaranteeing a synchronised integration of environment and landscape within
planning tools.
Cutaia shows that this procedure can truly represent a bridge between these two
worlds. However, together with these possibilities, we can also observe a wide set
of problems concerning the way this procedure should produce selected evaluations
in “perceptible” and “cultural” terms, as required by the European Landscape


Foreword 2

xi

Convention. The two study cases chosen by him show how we can complete in
range of Strategic Environmental Assessment by the use of indicators, the most
objective, shared and involving assessment that can communicate the cultural and
perceptible dimension of landscape.

Regarding the structure of the work, a three-part consequence of the observations exists. The aim of the first is the building of a complete, cognitive framework
on the issue, capable of defining research contexts: historic origins; establishment of
legal orders at national and European levels; diversity of methods in environmental
assessment; and “environmental indicators” at large as well as “landscape indicators” in particular. The study in this section introduces the exposition of two
European study cases about the implementation of the Strategic Environmental
Assessment procedure in two town plans: an Italian, that of Schio, and a Spanish
one, that of Calonge. Through experiential observation, we are able to note the
elements that have allowed urban planning practice to tie landscape, urbanism and
the environment together, in accordance with the provisions of the European
Landscape Convention and Directive 4/2004. In fact, after examining different
experiences of interpretation and landscape assessment together with two case
studies of environmental assessment, Cutaia observed the emergence of leanings for
evaluating the effects of landscape planning on a local scale. In addition to the
evaluation of some environmental elements (such as water, soil and air) through
specific indicators, it became more difficult to evaluate the “landscape” component
with its “cultural” aspect. In the third section, Cutaia suggests a method for landscape assessment in planning. The method developed is the result of observing the
above-mentioned practical cases and of tracking the main recurring elements:
landscape unit, indicators and social involvement. The latter represents a new
challenge in the participative processes: it also requires the inclusion of people in
the choice of the indicators, since a local community can provide a more subjective
analysis, principally by way of perception and identification of places. Professionals
usually conduct landscape analysis, but the European Landscape Convention insists
on the importance of the involvement of both citizens and economic agents in
landscape planning and assessment procedures upfront. Without claiming to
complete this complex issue, the last chapter is devoted to a framework related to
the relationship between landscape and people, according to what was found
throughout this study, informing a new research project.
The topic in itself is not novel, and in recent years, many scholars have made
efforts attempting to construct arrays of indicators able to work on the several
acceptances of the term “landscape”. Cutaia examines with critical sense the most

complete proposals submitted by different scholars, systematising and comparing
them, finally reaching the conclusion that we are too far from the objective for the
introduction of landscape indicators in the evaluative practice of urban plans, in
terms of their codification in specific application protocols. To achieve this purpose,
we need to bring about a complex work of theoretical–methodological construction
of evaluative models, whose guidelines have been marked by Cutaia, starting from
the examples developed in Italy and Spain in modern times.


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Foreword 2

The experiences analysed and related to the Catalan case, studied during a long
period of research in Spain, significantly marked the work of the author, opening
new and promising research perspectives. The reason is not that the Landscape
Observatory of Catalonia (whose activity was studied by Cutaia from the inside)
resolved the complex technical and administrative problems also observed in Spain
and relating to the synchronic integration between the procedures and methods
of the urban and landscape planning. It bases its activity on the awareness that only
a synergic and multidisciplinary approach—able to collect the contributions of the
different institutions, experts and citizens—can achieve a complete analysis and
classification of the landscape and, finally, to define the boundaries of its transformability. Complying with this principle, since its constitution, the observatory
represents a meeting point between the government of Catalonia, local authorities,
universities, professional groups and Catalan society in general: a centre of ideas
and action in relation to the landscape. This institution, apart from conducting
activities from its own research and project office, sets other important objectives,
well delineated in the chapter of this work related to the Catalan study case and here
shortly summarised. The goals are as follows: to promote social awareness campaigns about the landscape, its evolution, functions and transformations; to divulgate studies, reports and methods about the landscape; to stimulate scientific and
academic cooperation in the landscape field, as well as the comparison of works and

experiences of specialists and experts from universities and cultural institutions; to
follow European and international initiatives related to the landscape; to organise
seminars, conferences, courses, exhibitions and events in general in order to promote information and education on the landscape; to create a documentation centre
open to all citizens; and, in general, to become an amasser able to house all
individuals interested in the landscape.
Beyond the results effectively achieved, is that from the Catalan Observatory is a
fundamental teaching we have to pick up if we want to confer to the Strategic
Environmental Assessment the role we previously declared. In fact, its contribution
could facilitate the phase of interpretation and evaluation of the landscape, which,
in its own conception, cannot exclude recourse to the participative process. The
implementation of participative process hides, obviously, numerous traps.
However, it appears as a unique modality able to reduce the risk of subjective
interpretations of a “parameter” as empiric as the landscape. The integration of the
participative tool into the strategic environmental assessment processes—if well
managed by subjects able to select the interlocutors; isolate and subdivide problems; fix points; mediate local conflicts; and, finally, be associated with a multidisciplinary reading approach of physical and environmental components—really
can represent a key factor in the management of territorial planning processes.
Giuseppe Trombino
University of Palermo, Italy


Contents

Part I

Environmental Assessment: Development, References
and Tools

1 The Origins of Environmental Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2 The Current European Normative Frame . . . . . . . .

2.1 Directive 2001/42/EC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.1 Before and After Its Adoption . . . . . . . .
2.2 The European Landscape Convention. . . . . . . . .
2.3 The Aarhus Convention and Directive 2003/4/EC
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3 Similarities and Differences in the Evaluative Methods . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4 The Use of Landscape Indicators in Environmental Assessment.

4.1 Aims and Criteria for Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2 Examples of Landscape Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Part II

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Landscape Integration in Spatial Planning: Two
European Case Studies

5 Veneto (Italy) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.1 Territorial Policy in the Veneto Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.1.1 Urban Regional Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.1.2 The Regional Landscape Observatory . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.2 The Strategic Environment Assessment in the Veneto Region .
5.3 The SEA of the Urban Plan of the Town of Schio. . . . . . . . .
5.3.1 Analysis with Cones of Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.3.2 Structural Reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Contents

5.4 Some Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6 Catalonia (Spain). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.1 The Territorial Policy in Catalonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.1.1 The Planning Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.1.2 The Landscape Protection, Management
and Planning Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.2 Strategic Environmental Assessment in the Catalonia Region
6.3 Strategic Environmental Assessment of the Urban Plan
of the Town of Calonge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.3.1 The Higher-Level Planning: The “PTP de
Gerona’s District” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.3.2 The Urban Plan: Preparation, Purposes
and Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6.4 Some Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Part III

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Evaluating Planning Effects on the Landscape

7 Landscape Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7.1 Essential Tools for Landscape Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7.1.1 Landscape Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7.1.2 Participative Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7.1.3 Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7.2 Many Variables, a Possible Unique Method of Assessment.
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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8 Past Objectives and Future Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109


Acronyms

AAA
AIES
AP
CEQ
DMAH

DPSIR
DR
DSIR
EA
EEA
EIA
EIS
ELC
EMAS
EPA
ESPON
INSPIRE
ISA
ISAP
MA
NEPA
OECD
OTAAs
PAT
PATI
PDT
PI
POUM
PPP
PRC

Italian Association of Environmental Analysts
Assessment of the implications
Preliminary Draft for the Urban Plan
Council for Environmental Quality

Catalan Department of Environment and Housing
Driving forces, Pressures, State, Impacts, Responses
Reference Document
Driving forces, State, Impacts, Responses
Environmental Assessment
European Environment Agency
Environmental Impact Assessment
Environmental Impact Statement
European Landscape Convention
Eco-Management and Audit Scheme
Environmental Protection Agency
European Spatial Planning Observation Network
Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Union
Catalan Report of Environmental Sustainability
Preliminary Catalan Report of Environmental Sustainability
Catalan Final Report of Environmental Sustainability
National Environmental Policy Act
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
Catalan Techniques Offices of Environmental Assessment
Territorial Spatial Plan
Inter-communal Spatial Plan
Regional Directive Plan
Plan of the Interventions
Catalan Municipal Urban Plan
Policies, plans and programmes
Italian Municipal Urban Plan

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xvi

PTP
SCI
SEA
SPA
UNCSD
UNEP

Acronyms

Catalan Provincial Spatial Plan
Sites of Community Importance
Strategic Environmental Assessment
Special Protection Areas
United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development
United Nations Environment Programme


Part I

Environmental Assessment: Development,
References and Tools


Chapter 1

The Origins of Environmental Assessment

Abstract Looking back through the course of history, it is indeed possible to find

many different forms of “environmental assessment” that relate to a clear, unifying
philosophy: to consider the impact of such practices before they are implemented.
The most important difference that is clearly prevalent in more recent instances is
the consideration of the environmental component in the assessment process, which
can be straightforwardly be attributed to an increasing awareness within the modern
society of the ever-growing scarcity and the cost of natural resources combined
with the resulting quality of life for current and future generations. Focusing on the
origin of modern ecological assessment, this chapter will seek to analyse the
developments in the disciplines and benefits pertaining to the new Strategic
Environmental Assessment—an institution conceived in response to the progression of not only particular requirements—but also to economical, social and ecological values as well as the complexity of the planning process itself.

Á

Á

Keywords Environmental assessment
Environmental protection
National
Environmental Policy Act European directives Member state legislation
Environmental quality

Á

Á

Á

The concept of “Environmental Assessment” has historical origins, with such
practices having existed throughout the ages albeit under numerous titles.
Environmental Assessment (hereafter referred to as “EA”), as it is understood

today, was born in the Anglo-Saxon area. We can affirm that the initial processes
were different from those of now in terms of simplicity rather than philosophy,
therefore remaining essentially unchanged with prospects and consequences of a
certain development process being, as far as possible, provided for and taken into
account before decisions were finalised (Caratti et al. 2002). The closer the
assessment method is to the modern age, the more it is characterised by the greater
complexity in its approach.
The need for environmental protection generated a system for distribution of
labour among public servants and citizens, warranted by the gravity of the problem
coupled with an acknowledgement of common duty. In the realisation of specific
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
F. Cutaia, Strategic Environmental Assessment: Integrating Landscape
and Urban Planning, UNIPA Springer Series,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42132-2_1

3


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1 The Origins of Environmental Assessment

“development” manifestations, consideration towards ecological factors began to
take shape only when public and political domains were forced to recognise the
threat of natural resource exhaustion. Primary efforts in raising the attention towards
the matter came from the work of scholars who, since the 1960s, have aided not
only in the cultivation of public interest, but also in the addressing of apprehension
concerning issues such as pollution, consumption of natural resources and the
introduction of potentially toxic chemicals into production processes (Sheate 1994).
In addition to suggestions by O’Riordan and Turner (1983), the main reasons

that explain the birth of EA in the USA during this period can be traced to the
following four aspects:
1. Major scientific knowledge and advertising of information pertaining to environmental damage caused by the increases in the development and technological
activities;
2. Pressure group activity directed at public opinion and government forces—
initially in the USA and in the UK with the support of the media—that have
brought to light new environmental issues;
3. The increasing use of certain resources and the provision of disquieting scenarios, occasionally presented in catastrophic terms and
4. All of the above factors, which contributed to the increased attention by
developed Western countries in response to public pressure, thus leading to
heated debates on those issues.
Within this historical context, many measures were adopted in the USA, with the
first being approved on 31 December 1969—the “National Environmental Policy
Act” (NEPA), widely regarded as the birth of “modern” assessment. The NEPA
introduced a permeable and flexible framework capable of exerting deep influence
on the decision processes of public administrations, forcing bodies to factor conservational considerations into their decision-making processes. A year after the
promulgation of the primary legislation on policy and protection, the NEPA legal
institute was operational through two branches: the “Council for Environmental
Quality” (CEQ) and the “Environmental Protection Agency” (EPA)—the latter
being the current controlling agency for protection within the USA. The CEQ,
established as an advisory board, is tasked with issuing directives to federal
agencies, therein lie the origins of mandatory precautionary assessments: effects on
the ecosystem born from certain projects resulted in the ecosystem being factored
into the technical and socio-economic priority spheres. It established the imperative
of including, in each legal proposal or relevant federal act potentially able to affect
the human territory, a detailed report: the “Environmental Impact Statement” (EIS),
covering the consequences of the actions proposed in addition to possible alternatives and resources to be used for its implementation.
Now known as the EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment), the formerly titled
EIS introduced the first forms of control for human interaction with the natural
setting through tools and procedures oriented to anticipate and to assess the consequences of certain interventions. It is an act of executive relevance that

1 The Origins of Environmental Assessment

5

summarises collective opinions expressed by the public administrations and the
conservational associations—as well as social and citizen organisations—regarding
the coherence and admissibility of situational impact assessment results. If even one
of these stakeholders considers the data insufficient, it is mandatory to present new
reports or to improve upon the original project. Initially, these directives were
centred on the procedure of adopting, permitting and developing an assessment
method able to influence European countries that later embarked on this venture.
The NEPA marked a turning point because it established roles and procedures
for effective environmental protection. The basic concept resided with the
assumption that within the same process exist environmental, social and economic
values, all indistinct from one another to a degree. In order to implement this, the
NEPA proposed utilising a systematic, inter-disciplinary approach to ensure the
integrated use of the natural and social sciences and the environmental design arts
in planning and in decision-making that may influence human surroundings.
A further scheme was to draw a report for each action that could adversely affect
environmental quality, including its inevitable effects with alternatives to both the
action proposed and the excessive consumption of resources that could result from
the alteration of the intervention. In the dossier—preliminary documents drafted to
decide the progress of the writing of the EIS—are exposed significant data characterising the location and information about the impact of the project. Particular
attention is paid to the environmental characteristics of the site selected, the features
of the project, the ecological impacts expected, the design and site alternatives and,
finally, the measures considered to eliminate or to reduce the expected impacts.
These details carry the importance since the content provided by the EIS can limit
the decision process; in fact, they determine from the outset of the realisation of a

project. The selection of undertakings subject to EIS protocol is performed based on
project and place characteristics.
With the first Environment Action Programmes—in 1973, 1977 and 1983—the
European Community, intending to limit the environmental degradation via a
protection system, started to display interest in industrial installations, major public
works and the exploitative activities relating to natural resources. In doing so,
Europe tried to fine-tune a tool capable of implementing ecological policies typical
of the three action programmes, preventing from the first instance pollution or
nuisances, instead of combating such effects afterwards (Schmidt et al. 2005).
These were the grounds for the European “Environmental Impact Assessment”
(EIA),1 introduced by Directive 85/337/EEC, which identifies the guiding principle
of damage “prevention”. This directive establishes the authorisation of public and
private intervention with possible relevant impacts and must only be granted following the previous assessment of likely bearings on the settings. Finally, it defines
the guidelines that have to be applied by the member states. The EIA procedure, the

The EIA introduces the first form of control upon the activities that interact with the environment
through instruments and processes able to foresee and evaluate the consequences of certain works,
in order to avoid, reduce and mitigate their impacts.

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1 The Origins of Environmental Assessment

Espoo Convention (1991) and the Directive 97/11/EC represent two milestones: the
first extends its application to cross-border context; the second, as well as including
new categories of projects to be subjected to the procedure, introduces the phases
called “screening”2 and scooping3 and, finally, transposes what was stated in the

aforementioned Espoo Convention. The EIA yields, therefore, a procedure in
support of decisions surrounding the production or intervention of a task and permit
public administrations to focus on the environmental protection and human health
in the decision process, combining economic development, preservation of nature
and social welfare (Daclon 1996). The first countries that introduced the EIA in
Europe were the German Federal Republic4 and France,5 opening the way to the
introduction of the EIA process in all member state regulations. With the proposal
of a directive concerning the EIA in the “Second Action Programme on the
Environment” (1977), intense opposition gave rise to a debate lasting 8 years and
finishing on 27 June 1985, with Council Directive 85/337/EEC on the assessment
of the effects of certain public and private projects on the ecosystem. This is the first
attempt at introducing an organic regulation derived from the 1970 American
example, elaborated and improved upon over the course of time. On a fundamental
level, there are three important concepts: publicity, information and participation.
Furthermore, the directive offers the definition of “environmental impact”.6
Since the 1980s, the attention of the international community towards environmental protection has intensified due to the urgent realisation that further efforts
must be exerted. The attainability of sustainable development generates conflicts of
interest between industrialised and developing countries, opening the question of
research into equilibrium between two pursuits apparently in opposition: environmental protection and the right to develop. The affirmation of sustainability principles as a model for all member states, in order to safeguard ecosystem and natural
resources, marked the limits of tools used to direct related policies and instruments.
For this reason, environmental assessment—conceived to evaluate the impact of
individual projects—became the object of a survey designed to determine its relevance to policies, plans and programs (PPP).

2

Member states have to carry out a screening procedure to determine whether the
plans/programmes are likely to have significant environmental effects. If there are significant
impacts, an SEA is needed. The screening procedure is based on criteria set out in Annex II of the
Directive.
3

The scoping procedure determines the content and extent of the matters covered in the SEA report
to be submitted to the competent authority.
4
In 1976, a decision by the Federal Cabinet introduced an examination of the environmental
compatibility of the measures taken by public authorities, including proposed legislation, regulations, administrative provisions, programs and projects.
5
On 10th July 1976, in France was enacted Law no. 629, which introduced three different levels of
evaluation: surveys of environment, notices of impact and studies of impact.
6
This definition should cover the direct, indirect, secondary, cumulative, short, medium, long-term,
permanent, temporary, positive and negative effects of the project.


1 The Origins of Environmental Assessment

7

In the 1990s, the EIA process highlighted the necessity to have at their disposal
an assessment able to consider the territory in its complexity (Garano 2005) and the
assessment concept was assumed with the intention of surpassing the numerous
limits of the approach project by project. Furthermore, we have to consider that the
new challenges of relevant policies today are related to corrective actions in a larger
territorial context. Consequently, the global impact of every individual human
activity makes essential the construction of assessment tools for “precaution”,7
rather than prevention, able to intervene in influences originating from big strategic
alternatives as well as spatial regional and sectorial steering (Ferrara 2000). Another
limit of EIA processes consists of a reduced action boundary, due to the inability to
operate on the cumulative, synergic and indirect effects of design activities. The
research for these styles of tools is the result of the experience of many uncertain situations. The risk perceived by public opinion is more acute since science is
not simply limited to finding solutions; it revels in the uncertainty of its paths and

the ambivalence of its pioneers. At the same time, science lights up, explains and
unsettles—and permits domination, obscurity and confusion (Crepaldi and Togni
2007).
Within this frame, we can distinguish Holland, in anticipation of each other
country, as being the first nation to apply the new European Directive in 1986 with
legislation enriched by clear references to the evaluations for plans. The cornerstone
of the Dutch legislation is represented by the comparison of the different alternatives and the evaluations of their impacts, in order to determine the best solution in
terms of sustainability.
On 27 June 2001, upon these foundations was born European Directive
2001/42/EC, alongside the new model of “Strategic Environmental Assessment”
(SEA), which, coming before planning choices, allows member states coherence
regarding plans and programs surrounding sustainable development goals.

References

General References and Literature
Caratti P, Dalkman H, Jiliberto J (eds) (2002) Analysing strategic environmental assessment:
towards better decision-making. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham
Crepaldi G, Togni P (2007) Ecologia ambientale ed ecologia umana. Cantagalli, Siena

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The precautionary principle in the context of environmental protection is essentially about the
management of scientific risk. It is a fundamental component of the concept of ecologically
sustainable development and has been defined in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration: “Where there
are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a
reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation”.


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1 The Origins of Environmental Assessment

Daclon C (1996) La VIA in Italia e in Europa. Maggioli, Santarcangelo di Romagna
Ferrara R (2000) La valutazione di impatto ambientale. Cedam, Padova
Garano M (ed) (2005) La valutazione ambientale strategica: la decisione strategica nelle politiche,
nei piani e nei programmi urbanistici. Gangemi, Rome
O’Riordan T, Turner R (1983) An annotated Reader in Environmental Planning and Management.
Pergamon Press, Oxford
Schmidt M, João E, Albrecht E (2005) Implementing strategic environmental assessment.
Springer, Dordrecht
Sheate W (1994) Making an impact: a guide to EIA law and policy. Cameron May, Londona

Legislation
USA (1969) The National Environmental Policy Act, Tit. I, Congressional Declaration of National
Environmental Policy, sec. 102, let. a


Chapter 2

The Current European Normative Frame

Abstract The rapid introduction of the normative frame on the European scale,
both communally and nationally, follows the historical investigation presented in
the first chapter of this dissertation, with a double purpose: to define the issues of
the current debate on the one hand and to describe the state of the art on the other.
Directive 2001/42/EC of the European Parliament and Council of 27 June 2001
concerning the assessment of effects of certain plans and programmes on the setting
was officialised in July of that year, generating a wide range of experiences. It
establishes a basic framework that should be adopted by the member states of the

European Union. In the previous chapter, we showed the principal steps of the
normative path culminating in the SEA directive being adopted. Here, instead, we
attempt to define conceptual interpretations, contents, objectives and procedures of
the directive. Following a general description of its first decade by establishing an
integration of landscape, urbanism and environmental disciplines, we propose a
parallel reading with two important motions: the European Landscape Convention,
the first international treaty to be exclusively concerned with all dimensions of
European landscape, and the Aarhus Convention, a multilateral agreement providing opportunities for citizens to access environmental information.
Keywords Directive 2001/42/EC
Convention

2.1

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European Landscape Convention

Á

Aarhus

Directive 2001/42/EC

When launching the VI Environment Action Programme (Environment 2010: Our
Future, Our Choice, 24 January 2001), the European Commission put at the heart of
its interventions the objective of establishing a broader context of sustainable
development with the integration of environmental considerations into sectorial
policies. Furthermore, for all environmental issues, it seeks a strategic approach in
addressing five objectives: to improve the implementation of existing legislation; to
integrate environmental issues into other policies; to induce markets to work for the

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
F. Cutaia, Strategic Environmental Assessment: Integrating Landscape
and Urban Planning, UNIPA Springer Series,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42132-2_2

9