A framework for the selection of participatory approaches for SEA
Introduction
The concept of strategic environmental assessment (SEA)—considered in this paper as “a systematic process to analyse the environmental effects of policies, plans and programmes” (Dalal-Clayton and Sadler, 2004, p. 1)—has been implemented through various approaches throughout the world. These approaches differ in terms of operational aspects such as the steps considered in the process, the actors involved, the methods used to carry it out, etc.
Because of the lack of a common methodology for implementing SEA processes at the international level, many operational issues are raised by the administrations interested in adopting a SEA process (see Risse et al., 2003 for examples related to this).
One such issue, which is a major challenge, is how to select appropriate participatory approaches for implementing a given SEA. On the one hand, there is no guarantee that the approaches currently used are sufficient to ensure that a participatory process fulfils the expectations linked to participation in the specific case on hand. On the other hand, the existing participatory approaches in the larger field of environmental management are diverse and numerous, and are not always familiar to the administrations interested in SEA.
In this context, the paper explores some participatory approaches and determines which ones are suitable for SEA. It is organised as follows:
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the first section briefly reviews the state of the art regarding public participation in the field of SEA;
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the second section reviews some of the participatory approaches used in the field of environmental management;
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the third section selects criteria that are pertinent for SEA as a special case of environmental conflicts from a list developed by Wittmer et al. (in press) to evaluate or select instruments to resolve environmental conflicts;
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the fourth section evaluates the participatory approaches (defined in Section 2) using the criteria presented in the previous section and proposes some interesting approaches for SEA;
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the closing section presents the conclusions of the work.
Section snippets
SEA and public participation
SEA is now used (officially or otherwise) by many administrations in the world. It is used at various scales (international, national, regional, local) and for different sectors and problems.
Curiously, this strong interest in SEA contrasts with a lack of information or agreement concerning some of its theoretical and operational aspects. For example, despite the many definitions of SEA proposed in the literature since 1992, no definition has yet been commonly accepted internationally. Moreover,
Some participatory approaches used in environmental management
Participation is becoming increasingly prominent in all processes of land-use planning, not only in SEA, and is called for in many international and national conventions, laws, directives and resolutions, etc. There is a wide range of different participatory approaches, and also of categorisations of these approaches (Cohen and Uphoff, 1980, Creighton et al., 1998, Joss and Bellucci, 2002, Renn et al., 1995). We will illustrate the variety of approaches by briefly presenting five different
Evaluation criteria and their pertinence for SEA
Wittmer et al. (in press) developed a list of criteria to evaluate the appropriateness of participatory conflict resolution methods for specific cases. Several methods presented in the same issue of Land Use Policy were then evaluated by Rauschmayer and Wittmer (in press). Conflicts are situations when “two (or more) people (or groups) perceive that their values or needs are incompatible—whether or not they propose, at present or in the future, to take any action on the basis of those values or
Evaluation of approaches
Table 2 gives an overview of the evaluation of the participatory approaches depending on the criteria selected. Since the approaches are evaluated in the specific framework of SEA, their evaluation differs from the more general evaluation given in Rauschmayer and Wittmer (in press). The evaluation range goes from “0”, i.e. “the approach does not focus specially on this issue” to “+++”, i.e. “the approach focuses explicitly and systematically on this issue”. It is therefore merely an indication
Conclusion
Without trying to be exhaustive, this article presents a framework for the evaluation of participative approaches that could be useful for SEA. After examining public participation in SEA, it describes a number of approaches used in environmental management and identifies criteria useful for evaluating them in a SEA context. Each of these approaches was found to have strengths and weaknesses. This variation highlights the need to precisely define the requirement of the specific SEA planned to
Acknowledgements
This work was partly supported by the Programme Prospective Research for Brussels, managed by the Ministry of the Brussels Capital Region, whom we would like to thank for its considerable contribution. This paper was also enabled by a period of research spent by the German co-author at Université Libre de Bruxelles, and grateful thanks are due to ULB and the UFZ Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig-Halle for facilitating this stay.
Felix Rauschmayer holds a master's degree and a doctorate in economics from Heidelberg University (Germany). After having taught as an assistant professor at the Institute of Philosophy, Leipzig, he is currently a research fellow at the UFZ Centre of Environmental Research Leipzig-Halle (Germany). His methodological and empirical work focuses on participatory multicriteria analysis as a decision process for improving environmental governance.
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Cited by (0)
Felix Rauschmayer holds a master's degree and a doctorate in economics from Heidelberg University (Germany). After having taught as an assistant professor at the Institute of Philosophy, Leipzig, he is currently a research fellow at the UFZ Centre of Environmental Research Leipzig-Halle (Germany). His methodological and empirical work focuses on participatory multicriteria analysis as a decision process for improving environmental governance.
Nathalie Risse holds a master's degree in environmental science from Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada) and a second master's degree7 in environmental management from Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). She has held various research positions in both academic and governmental settings. She is currently conducting research on strategic environmental assessment at Service de Mathématiques de la Gestion (Université Libre de Bruxelles) and finishing a PhD in environmental management at the Institute of Environmental Management and Physical Planning (IGEAT, Belgium).