The progress of strategic environmental assessment （SEA）： Studies and practices in the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan of China

Strategic environmental assessment （SEA） is the process to evaluate, in a systematic way, the possible environmental impacts caused by decision making such as policy, plan, and program. It is of highly significance to improve decision-making. This article reviewed the researches on SEA as well as its practices in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the mainland of China. The regulations, methodologies, and effect of practices were compared. The regulations on SEA had been enacted at three places respectively. With the largest spatial area and rapid economic development pace, the mainland has carded out more SEA practices recently than the other two places, but their final effect still need to be confirmed. It was said that Hong Kong had acquired considerable experiences on SEA, while practice of SEA at Taiwan lagged behind.

Alternatives of Strategic Environmental Assessment for Road Traffic Development Planning——Case of Changchun City,China

On analyzing the achievement of the goal in the modem urban road traffic development planning, the alternative of Strategic Environmental Assessment for urban traffic planning should include the basic scheme, the extended scheme and the environmental protection scheme. This study from different perspectives designed the alternatives for Changchun＇s county-level road and urban road system planning, and used the method of System Dynamics to simulate, optimize and analyze those alternatives. Thereafter, some methods including the correlation function method were used to comprehensively assess and rank those alternatives for recommending two best alternatives with the consideration to the indicators, such as the total emission amount of CO, the total emission amount of nitrogen oxides, the noise value, the road construction cost, the fossil oil consumption and the traffic capacity. The result showed that the study would provide substantial supports for decision-makers to make more scientific decisions and promote the sustainable urban traffic in Changchun City.

Research on Public Participation and Information Publicity in Strategic Environmental Assessment

It has been generally recognized that strategic environmental assessment integrates environment and development into decision-making and becomes an important decision-making tool for implementing sustainable development. This paper firstly introduces the relationships of SEA, public participation(PP)and information publicity(IP),then discusses the key parts in enforcing the effective process of PP: They are the methods for how to make sufficient information open (What), when to implement PP (When), who will determinate the public (Who), and how to make the models of PP (How). Six cases are compared and analyzed. At last, ways to improve the effectiveness of PP in China is also presented.

STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN URBANIZATION PROCESS IN CHINA

This paper reviewed the development of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) in China, expounded its functions and regional characteristics, and discussed the targets of SEA in the process of urbanization,and the main assessment indicators, procedures, techniques and methodologies of SEA. It concluded that SEA could be improved by the following recommendations: incorporating SEA in decision-making process, selecting experimental units for SEA trial run, and developing strategic evaluation tools and techniques. SEA can provide appropriate and up-to-date information on the impact of human activity on environment in the process of urbanization, and develop a plan of action targeting implementation of intervention for the rehabilitation and preservation of the ecological stability of a city. Therefore, SEA can be a supporting tool for decision-making toward achieving sustainable development.

THEORIES AND METHODS OF STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF MODERN LOGISTICS DEVELOPMENT——A Case Study of Dalian City, China

Modern logistics is a new industry during the construction of national economy. Based on analyzing the environmental problem that was led by the limitation of the strategy during enacting the program of the modern logistics, SEA for modern logistics was implemented. In this paper, procedure and indicator system in the SEA are constructed, and Environmental Check List to identify environmental impact factors of SEA for modern logistics is established. And a conception that indicates friendly degree of logistics system with resources and environment, degree of green, is introduced. With the example of modern logistics program of Dalian in China, two methods are applied, AHP and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Method, in the implement of SEA for modern logistics development. It is concluded that degree of green of modern logistics in Dalian is high. However, several important factors should be paid much attention to in the SEA for modern logistics as well as in the formulation and implement of modern logistics in Dalian.

NECESSITY AND METHOD OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT OF CHINA

Public participation has been one of important problems in the strategic environmental assessment (SEA). In this paper, the origin and the present research-conditions of public participation in SEA were analyzed. And the necessity of public participation was illuminated from following three aspects: 1) the public participation in China′s SEA is a key method of gaining the public support; 2) the public participation is one important source of gaining information; 3) the public participation is a good way to overcome the obstruction in the traditional mechanism of making strategy decision. Effective public participation should be involved in the whole process of SEA, and the public participators should include the public representatives of the groups affected by environmental change, the specialists in SEA and relevant fields, persons who are interested in the strategy and media, and so on. Various methods of public participation in SEA, including the methods of obtaining information and information feedback or consultation, were discussed. Further, the function, the advantages and the disadvantages of each method were discussed in detail, too.

Strategic Environmental Assessment:A New Tool for Ecological Urbanization of Coastal Cities in China

Recently, there has been growing concerns about environmental issues related to urbanization in China. The intense natural resources utilization and increasing population has brought great pressure, especially in coastal areas, consequently affecting the sustainable development of coastal cities. In 2002, Environmental Impact Assessment Act (EIA Act) was enacted in China. Environmental impact assessment targeted at planning, one level of strategic environmental assessment (SEA), thus became a legislative requirement. This paper considers SEA to be one of the important approaches not only to control coastal pollution, but also to conserve coastal ecosystems and finally to achieve sustainable development during urbanization, thus it will be a set an example for other areas of China. The experience of SEA in Xiamen, a coastal city in southeast China, illustrates the potentials of SEA. This paper first briefly introduces the concept and potentials of SEA, then compares two SEA cases and a project EIA case in Xiamen, and finally identifies the key characteristics of SEA.

Study Progress and Trends of Strategic Environmental Assessment in China

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in China has developed rapidly since it was introduced into China in the 1990s. Chinese government promulgated the Environmental Impact Assessment Law of China (hereinafter referred to as the EIA Law) in 2002. In this law, it is stipulated clearly that regional and sector plans should be assessed. Through investigating materials and analyzing literatures, this article analyses the practical and academic study achievements of SEA in China that have been achieved since the EIA Law was implemented, probes into the current situation of the main level of SEA in China-plan EIA, then summarizes the development characteristics, and eventually, puts forward the development trends of SEA in China. The research conclusions can offer the foundations for comprehending systematically the progress of SEA in China.

Scientific Basis and Technological Path of Regional Strategic Environmental Assessment

The study tries to set up a system to extract strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in exploitation of regional development based on the present situation of environmental assessment in China. First, the article summarizes the emphasis and deficiency of international academic community’s SEA research in the past 10 years. Based on this, the article puts forward the concept and evaluation principles of regional strategic environmental assessment (RSEA). Then the article expounds the necessity of carrying out RSEA. After that, the article discusses in detail the process of RSEA, which includes defining evaluation scope, describing regional background, combing strategic behavior, designing development scenarios, predicting the pressure on environment, assessing environmental impact, screening alternatives and proposing regulation and control schemes.

Ecosystem health: ecological sustainability target of strategic environment assessment

Strategic environment assessment (SEA) and ecosystem health are two new ideas on environmental management. On the basis of reviewing some relevant literature, this paper made discussions on the ecological sustainability target of SEA, the content of ecosystem health as well as the interrelations between SEA and ecosystem health. For a good SEA, its ecological sustainability principles should be provided with distinct content and a general assessment system. A framework for ecosystem health assessment was established according to the content of ecosystem health, and combined into SEA as SEA抯 ecological sustainability target, we can effectively guide decision-makers to make suitable indigenous means and local solutions. , The basic principles and procedure of SEA for ecosystem health are also discussed in the paper.

Strategic environmental assessment in China

In the past three decades, especially in recent years, the environment has unceasingly deteriorated with rapid development of Chinese economy, and the inherent limitations of conventional project EIA have come to light. Thus, to pursue a broader course of sustainable development, the Chinese government has attached more and more importance to SEA. Strategic Environmental Assessment （SEA） is a frontier subject in the field of Environmental Impact Assessment （EIA）. This article describes the current situation of SEA in China, discusses major problems with SEA, and then recommends improvements in the system. EIA Act of the People＇s Republic of China was promulgated which explicitly provides SEA is required in regional and sector plans and programs. In order to promote comprehensive development of SEA, a lot of work has been done by SEPA. Some SEA ＂experiments＂ have been implemented, and some research has been conducted on the topic in China. But SEA as applied today in China is confronted with a host of methodological and institutional limitations. Moreover, public participation is often extremely limited, because the system restricts public participation. Policies and strategies are kept secret from the public. Most of the research has been focused on the concept, theory, and framework of SEA. Comprehensive application of SEA in China has yet to occur, and only a limited number of case studies are available. We believe SEA can be improved by the following recommendations： dividing SEA into two stages, formulating legislation to safeguard the funds for SEA, guiding actively the public to participate in SEA, completing basic data bank about SEA, and setting up Hall for Workshop of Meta-synthetic Engineering for SEA.

Key issues in the strategic environmental assessment of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River

The middle reaches of the Yangtze River were the key areas of central China emphasized in many strategic plans.It was also an important ecological and fragile area,because there are many wetlands,lakes,rivers and soil erosion area.And it linked the ecological fragile upper reaches of the Yangtze River with the most developed Yangtze River Delta in China.It is urgent to figure out the key industries,key areas and key ecological and environmental problems for the strategic environmental assessment of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.The important regions consisted of the economic key region,the planning key region,the ecological key region,and the fragile ecological region.The key industries consisted of the ones contributed to economic growth,or affecting the environment,or preferred by the local government.Besides,the ecological and environmental problems involved the water environment,the atmosphere environment,and the ecological environment.The key regions were identified through word frequency statistics of many plans by ROST Word Parser.And it was spatially overlaid by ArcGIS9.2.The key industries were calculated based on the economic statistics data,the environmental pollution census and the word frequency statistics.Based on SCI-EXPANDED,CPCI-S,CCR-EXPANDED,IC database and Chinese CNKI periodical database,the ecological and environmental problems of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River were analyzed by Citespace software according to the keywords and abstract of every paper.The results show that the important regions of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River concentrated in the central urban region,along the river and lake,surrounding mountains,and the wetland.The equipment manufacturing,chemical industry,mining industry,energy supply industry,food industry,textile and garment industry were the key industries need to be focused on.The urgent ecological and environmental problems in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River were the water environment pollution,water ecosystem,heavy metal pollution,soil and wetlands destruction,organic pollution and biodiversity decrease issues..

STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT ASSESSMENT ON LAND-USE PLANNING-A Case Study of Changchun Economic and Technological Zone

The study centers on the necessity,t he workflowand the synthetically in tegrated methods(Principal Compo-nentAnalysis(PCA),AndyticalHierarchy Process(AHP)andFuzzy Comprerhensive Evaluatio n(FCE))ofstrategic environ-ment assessment (SEA)on land-use planning.The whole article includes three main parts:firstly,some attribute database,graphic-base and the spatial transform matrix,which reflect the change of regional land-use pattern,can be ob-tained by GIS technique;secondly,a dopting fitting method of trend-sur face analysis will convert environm ent monitoring data from scattered spots to regular control spots,based on which we can p erform regional environment impact assess-ment;finally,Changchun Economic a nd Technological Developmen Zone is chosen as a case study on land-use pla nning.Through those efforts the results ma y be obtained as follows:1)according to transform matrix,the p ossibility of transforma-tion from one land-use to another can be obtained after the planning is carried out;2)environment quality would change as a result of the change of land-use p attern;3)the SEA on land-use plan is an effecti ve tool to make land-use pattern more reasonable.

Investment Environment Assessment and Strategic Policy for Subjects of Federation in Russia

Russia is the largest neighboring country of China. Between the two countries, the resources and industry are complemented, the political mutual trust is at a high level, and trade cooperation has a broad prospect. Choosing the best regions and the best industries to strengthen investment in Russia has a major strategic significance in promoting ‘the Belt and Road Initiative’ and China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor Construction. However, the related researches are extremely limited. The investment environment is unclear, and the investment risk is unknown, which seriously restrict the investment in Russia and the trade cooperation with Russia. Our research team carried out scientific expedition, government visits and scientific research cooperation in Russia for several years, and obtained a great number of first-hand valuable data. According to the analysis on the data and Russian regional policies, this study constructed an investment environment evaluation model(ESI-PRA model), scientific assessed the investment environment for 83 subjects of federation in Russia, in terms of economic, social, infrastructure, policy, resource and accessibility, classified 4 types of investment regions, chose 3 investment priority regions, revealed the investment priority industries, demonstrated the main investment risks, and proposed the strategic policies. The research results provide direct scientific and technological support for strategic decisions, such as investment in Russia, bilateral economic and trade cooperation, and overseas layout of Chinese-funded enterprises. Moreover, it has an important practical and strategic significance for improving overseas geo-strategic interests of China and ensuring the construction of China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor.

Assessment of China's International Environment and U.S. Strategic Trend

It is of great significance to have a clear understanding of the international environment that China faces. But this is an uneasy job. Since September 11, the world situation has become so complicated that it is hard to grasp its essence even with painstaking efforts. To judge such an already complicated international environment from China’s perspective adds more difficulties, for different people usually have different views due to the different angles from which they see the situation and different methods they adopt. This, understandably, leads to hot debates within the Chinese academic circles. To provide a stage for exchange of views, at the invitation of the CIR Expert Forum, some well-known scholars and experts on international relations from Beijing gathered to hold a symposium on November 5, 2002, with the theme of "How to assess the international environment that China faces". The speeches at the symposium will be published in two installments. Following are the first half.

Establishment and Application of Urbanization Strategic Environ-mental Assessment Integration Technology System

Urbanization strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is an effective instrument to enhance the harmo-nious development of urban complex system, integrating of environment and development in decision-making. Ur-banization strategic environmental assessment integration technology system (SEA-ITS) is composed of "3S" (RS, GIS and GPS), environmental expert system and environmental model system, coupling with appropriate SEA working process closely. In this paper, the structure and components of SEA-ITS are analyzed based on Chinese characteristics, meanwhile methods to fulfill the following system functions are discussed: urbanization SEA in-quiring, analysis, discrimination, assessment, prediction, decision-making and output. Moreover, methods and tech-nologies employed in different urbanization SEA hierarchies are summarized. As a case study, urbanization SEA-ITS is applied in Changchun City to solving complex real problems. Methods such as system dynamics and grey cluster are adopted to achieve the environmental impact assessment on the eco-industrial system planning. It is revealed that the system designed is capable of reflecting the dynamic behavior of eco-industrial system under different sce-narios, meanwhile accomplishing strategy optimization and supplying scientific reference. The 4th strategy, namely concerning on economy increase and its interaction with science, technology and environment progress, would have the best efficiency. Further, more attention should be paid to the secondary development of integration techniques and function modification system of urbanization SEA-ITS.

Planning Environmental Impact Assessment Orienting Sustainable Development: Opportunities and Challenges

Strategic Environmental Assessment is a frontier subject in the field of Environmental Impact Assessment. In the past two decades, especially in recent years, much more importance has been attached to Strategic Environmental Assessment. The Environmental Impact Assessment Law of the P.R. China which was promulgated provides a great opportunity for the development of Planning Environmental Impact Assessment and brings great challenges for the development of traditional Project Environmental Impact Assessment and Planning Environmental Impact Assessment at the same time. In order to promote the implementation of "The EIA Law", the inherent limitations of Project Environmental Impact Assessment must be identified sufficiently and the theory research and practice of Planning Environmental Impact Assessment should be strengthened as well. Measures should be taken currently to enforce the operation system. The authors wish to offer a few references to the progress and implementation of Planning Environmental Impact Assessment in China.

Risk Assessment for Metals and PAHs by Mediterranean Seafood

Fish is a very important food because of its high nutritional value. Fish consumption is largely recommended in all countries, so quality and safety of seafood are becoming of great concern. Especially in Mediterranean Sea, where many pollutants, as metals and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), are often relieved also in high concentrations, seafood safety has to be checked by a methodologically rigorous risk assessment. So we propose in this paper a stagesrisk assessment methodology to estimate the seafood potential risk for human health and point-out critical topics in order to support fish advisories.

Quantitative evaluation of air pollution in transport strategic environmental assessment:a case study based on uncertainty analysis and graphic information system technology

Although the impact of road transport on urban air quality has achieved a high profile in China,still greater attention is required as it has not yet been considered fully even in relation to the road network linking cities and urban areas. Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is a systematic and comprehensive process for evaluating the environmental impacts of a policy,plan or program in publicly accountable decision-making. Air pollution has been recognized as a significant issue in most transport SEA practices. The Strategic Environmental Assessment of the Hubei Road Network Plan (2002-2020) (HRNP) was introduced as one of the World Bank's pilot SEA projects. An effective framework was developed to investigate the functional relationship between the road network and its potential air pollutant emissions. In this study,two indicators were identified:emission intensity/ inventory of pollutants and the spatial distribution of the most polluted areas. Because strategic actions are inherently nebulous and data quality is often disappointing,three alternative scenarios were employed to address uncertainties and data/scale issues. Calculations were made using emission models and results were analyzed with the help of statistical tools and the geographic information system (GIS). The results from the project implementation and the feedback from the World Bank have both shown that the proposed framework is effective in the transport SEA process.

Practice of Strategic Environmental Assessment in Coastal Zone, China

The mistakes made in the decision-making pro- cess would result in more serious environmental problems than in the project process. How to re- duce or avoid the negative environmental impacts that may be created in the decision-making process, and push the decision-making towards sustainabili- ty, strategic environmental assessment (SEA) was considered one of the most effective approaches and tools. Although SEA has been in existence for over ten years, it should be noted that there are still some shortcomings involving the framework, methodology, procedure and review methods. Based upon three SEA case studies in the coastal zone of Xiamen, China, this paper systematically compares and analyzes targets, contents, method- ologies, and effects of SEA. The results showed that the higher the level of the target, the larger the effect of SEA ; and the earlier SEA is involved in the decision-making process, the more effective SEA is in influencing decision-making. The conceptual framework for environmental protection principles proposed at the beginning of the decision-making process was developed. It was proven a very effi- cacious methodology for SEA.