Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) as a Participatory Approach to Environmental Planning Experiences from a case study with SEA in waste management

A Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is conducted to ensure that the environmental consequences of plans or programs (land use programs, traffic planning, waste management planning etc.) are identified and assessed. Participation is a mandatory element of the SEA process. All affected parties are required to be represented in the process. Until today, the SEA process has been applied to waste management in only a few cases. This paper describes the assessment of a waste management plan in the province of Salzburg, Austria. The process took place in 2003. As in other cases of SEA, several alternatives were considered and assessed. Participation involved the establishment of a project team including all the relevant authorities and institutions and two expert teams. All decisions throughout the process (e.g. selection of the framework, scenarios and indicators), had to be taken by a majority of the project team. The aim of the process was to pinpoint the pros and cons of the different scenarios rather than identify the “best solution.” This paper describes the process and highlights the critical points.