Bridging the Gap Between Strategic Environmental Assessment and Planning

Abstract

Current planning practices in Europe are affected by regulations aiming at environmental protection and risk reduction; however, planners face difficulties in implementing the norms. This chapter discusses the influence of the introduction of strategic environmental assessment and of spatial data infrastructures in the EU. To address these issues, the geodesign approach is proposed, firstly analyzing its relationships with the current planning regulations at the regional level in Italy and then its opportunities for application in practice with regard to the Sardinian case study (Italy); secondly, examples of Planning Support System are proposed and tested with real-world case studies to implement the core phases of the geodesign approach. In addition, the benefits for SEA of developing state-of-the-art workflows in geodesign collaborative workshops are discussed. The chapter concludes suggesting that geodesign may fruitfully address some of the major issues in the current planning and SEA practice, taking full advantage of the newly available resources of SDI.