Environmental Project's Achievements Reports Query System

A study on the establishment of technology and methods of SEA

Absrtact	Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been implemented in many countries in the world for many years. However, due to various political, socio-economic, and cultural conditions, limitations were found with respect to their practices. In addition, because conventional project-EIA was generally carried out at later stages and in lower level, their effects to the whole project were also constrained. Thus, in recent years, the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) implemented and promoted in the international society were aimed to be supplementary to traditional project-EIA so that the deficiency in EIA can be alleviated. SEA is the systematic and integrated environmental assessment to policies, plans, and programs. It was originated in the United States, but later relatively successfully put into practice in European countries. The Environmental Impact Assessment Act of Taiwan was passed in 1994 and later in 1997 the Administrative Regulations of Environmental Impact Assessments of Governmental Policies was promulgated, which presents the legal base for SEA of governmental policies in Taiwan. The 26th items in that document, it was indicated that SEA for nine policy categories that contains eleven items were required. However, so far only three SEA, one for industrial policy, one for water resources development, and another for land use policy, were implemented. As the policy level, targets, and scale of influence of the three cases differ in many aspects, they cannot build up the demonstration of Taiwan’s SEA. Thus, the goal of this research project is to collect and integrate international and domestic documents regarding the technologies and development trends, study on related policy categories, and establish standardized and scientific assessment methodologies. Moreover, by taking into account the essence and idea about sustainable development, the indicators used in the current matrix as stated in the related regulations were also revised based on ad-hoc approaches, so that the applicability of Taiwan’s SEA regulations would be improved. Research results indicate that the following problems exist in the three cases already done: lack of feasible alternatives, lack of public participation, lack of considering sustainable development issues, and lack of cross-departmental connections and cooperation. The governmental departments in charge of SEA are actually not familiar with the context and procedures of the current SEA regulations. It always happened that hard-to-solve problems appeared at the early stage of scoping. Besides, objective targets of the goals of the SEA were difficult to compute or estimate due to non-satisfactory quality and quantity of necessary supporting information. Objective evaluation mechanisms for the matrix in the SEA regulations were also absent. When the environmental statements were submitted to the upper-level agencies by the responsible departments, they were usually treated as those for project-EIA and hence following tasks were hard to proceed. In this research, problem solutions and suggestions were presented through several steps including collecting and integrating international and domestic documents in the literature, analyzing typical SEA cases, and constructing sustainable development indicators by an ad-hoc committee. Seventy three indicators were proposed based on the screening questionnaire helped by twenty five experts and governmental representatives. This new system can be one alternative of the current matrix system. Finally, the following suggestions were argued with respect to the SEA regulations and their implementations: 1. Timing and anticipating departments for the scoping process should be reexamined. 2. Mechanisms for public participation should be confirmed. 3. The errors and typos in the matrix table should be polished and it should be re-announced by the government. 4. The policies and corresponding items required by the SEA regulations should be revised and augmented: (1)The items should be re-examined and added to. (2)Policy items not directly related to development activities should also be included. (3)Urban and regional planning, proposal or revision of the comprehensive development plans in the county-level, and development plans of new towns should be included in the land use policy category. (4)The government should finish the remaining SEA required by the related regulations within one year, or the regulations should be revised.
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Absrtact

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been implemented in many countries in the world for many years. However, due to various political, socio-economic, and cultural conditions, limitations were found with respect to their practices. In addition, because conventional project-EIA was generally carried out at later stages and in lower level, their effects to the whole project were also constrained. Thus, in recent years, the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) implemented and promoted in the international society were aimed to be supplementary to traditional project-EIA so that the deficiency in EIA can be alleviated. SEA is the systematic and integrated environmental assessment to policies, plans, and programs. It was originated in the United States, but later relatively successfully put into practice in European countries. The Environmental Impact Assessment Act of Taiwan was passed in 1994 and later in 1997 the Administrative Regulations of Environmental Impact Assessments of Governmental Policies was promulgated, which presents the legal base for SEA of governmental policies in Taiwan. The 26th items in that document, it was indicated that SEA for nine policy categories that contains eleven items were required. However, so far only three SEA, one for industrial policy, one for water resources development, and another for land use policy, were implemented. As the policy level, targets, and scale of influence of the three cases differ in many aspects, they cannot build up the demonstration of Taiwan’s SEA. Thus, the goal of this research project is to collect and integrate international and domestic documents regarding the technologies and development trends, study on related policy categories, and establish standardized and scientific assessment methodologies. Moreover, by taking into account the essence and idea about sustainable development, the indicators used in the current matrix as stated in the related regulations were also revised based on ad-hoc approaches, so that the applicability of Taiwan’s SEA regulations would be improved. Research results indicate that the following problems exist in the three cases already done: lack of feasible alternatives, lack of public participation, lack of considering sustainable development issues, and lack of cross-departmental connections and cooperation. The governmental departments in charge of SEA are actually not familiar with the context and procedures of the current SEA regulations. It always happened that hard-to-solve problems appeared at the early stage of scoping. Besides, objective targets of the goals of the SEA were difficult to compute or estimate due to non-satisfactory quality and quantity of necessary supporting information. Objective evaluation mechanisms for the matrix in the SEA regulations were also absent. When the environmental statements were submitted to the upper-level agencies by the responsible departments, they were usually treated as those for project-EIA and hence following tasks were hard to proceed. In this research, problem solutions and suggestions were presented through several steps including collecting and integrating international and domestic documents in the literature, analyzing typical SEA cases, and constructing sustainable development indicators by an ad-hoc committee. Seventy three indicators were proposed based on the screening questionnaire helped by twenty five experts and governmental representatives. This new system can be one alternative of the current matrix system. Finally, the following suggestions were argued with respect to the SEA regulations and their implementations: 1. Timing and anticipating departments for the scoping process should be reexamined. 2. Mechanisms for public participation should be confirmed. 3. The errors and typos in the matrix table should be polished and it should be re-announced by the government. 4. The policies and corresponding items required by the SEA regulations should be revised and augmented: (1)The items should be re-examined and added to. (2)Policy items not directly related to development activities should also be included. (3)Urban and regional planning, proposal or revision of the comprehensive development plans in the county-level, and development plans of new towns should be included in the land use policy category. (4)The government should finish the remaining SEA required by the related regulations within one year, or the regulations should be revised.

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