The lack of early integration with the planning and decision-making process has
been a major problem in environmental assessment. Traditional project-based
environmental impact assessment has inadequate incentives and capacities to incorporate
critical environmental impacts at a broader temporal or spatial scale. While many
applications have been geared towards implementing project-level environmental
assessments, comparatively little research has been done to determine how to
incorporate strategically critical environmental impacts into local planning. Although the
principles of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) are not yet required in local
planning in the United States, these principles create a theoretical framework for local
environmental assessment.
The objective of this study is to examine the ability of local plans to integrate and
implement the key SEA principles. This study focuses on increasing the understanding
of how and where to integrate environmental impacts into the local planning and
decision-making process by converting the principles of SEA into specific planning tools, policies, and implementation strategies. This study develops a protocol with 112
indicators to measure the strengths and weaknesses of integrating strategic
environmental assessment into local comprehensive land use plans. A random sample of
40 California local comprehensive land use plans and associated planning processes is
evaluated based on this plan quality evaluation protocol. Statistical analysis and multiple
regression models identify the factors affecting the quality of plans with respect to their
ability to assess environmental impacts.
The results identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the ability of local
jurisdictions to integrate the SEA principles. The results show that many strategically
important environmental issues and tools are rarely adopted by current local plans. The
regression analysis results further identify the effects of planning capacity,
environmental assessment capacity, public participation and contextual variables on
environmental assessment plan quality. The findings extend established planning theory
and practice by incorporating strategic environmental considerations into the existing
framework of what constitutes a high quality local land use comprehensive plan and
suggest ways to improve plan quality.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-1382 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Tang, Zhenghong |
| Contributors | Brody, Samuel D. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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