Strategic Environmental Assessment : In Australasia

Strategic Environmental Assessment in Australasia provides an authoritative, up-to-date report on the state of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in Australia and New Zealand, at a time of gathering momentum for recognition of SEA as a necessary and legitimate part of natural resources management.SEA is the application of environmental assessment to policies, plans and programs. It seeks to address, as early as possible, and on a par with social and economic impacts, what environmental impacts may occur, and what measures should be taken to avoid or ameliorate these impacts.In Australia and New Zealand, SEA remains the poor relation to project related environmental impact assessment (EIA) with the result that project related EIA still commonly takes place in a vacuum of strategic and cumulative environmental assessment.This book examines:What SEA is, and how it relates to other toolsThe need for SEA, and how it can influence decision-makingHow SEA works, and the principles on which it is based, the different approaches that must be taken, and the methods that may be deployedProcedural requirements within countries, and internationallyStrategic Environmental Assessment in Australasia contains theoretical and practical perspectives, and complements works focussing on North American and European experiences.The examples show:missed opportunities, as well as opportunities made and graspedthe effects of a lack of formal legal recognition or specification of SEAthe circumstances, such as longstanding conflict between interest groups, that have forced governments to an integrated and strategic rather than an 'ad hoc' response.Editors Simon Marsden and Steve Dovers consider whether SEA will play a more meaningful role in resource and environmental management, what that role should be and how that might be achieved.This book will be useful to practitioners from many disciplines, including law, land use planning, geography, engineering and the social sciences.Marsden, Simon is the author of 'Strategic Environmental Assessment : In Australasia', published 2002 under ISBN 9781862874336 and ISBN 1862874336.