Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

In order to promote sustainable development in urban planning environmental impact assessment (EIA) for plans and programs that are likely to have significant environmental effects is established. An EIA aims to provide a high level of protection of the environment and contribute to the integration of environmental aspects into the preparation and adoption of plans and programs. The base for the Swedish EIA rules are contained in the Environmental Code, chapter 6, the Regulation on Environmental Impact Assessment and the Planning and Building Act. Responsibility for urban planning lies with the municipalities, which express the planning in a comprehensive plan that aims to describe how they want to promote long-term development in terms of settlement and land and water use. In a summary statement, they report how environmental considerations are integrated into the plan and how the consultation responses are taken into account. To support environmental efforts, the national environmental goals are also implemented in municipal planning. Since most comprehensive plans have a purpose to concentrate the settlements without the detriment of the environment the national environmental goal A Good Built Environment is treated. Efforts on the comprehensive plan and EIA should be a democratic process and information on how interested parties can take part of the proposal should be made available. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine how the EIA is used in the comprehensive plan, its transparency, clarity and integration. The method used is a literature review which treated among other enactments, books and a review of six comprehensive plans with associated EIAs. The results show that municipalities treat EIAs to a different extent. The concept of EIA is described poorly and assessments are in some cases clearly in their own chapter, while in others, woven into the comprehensive plan. A summary statement is missing for most municipalities and the environmental objective of treating it really general. Four of the six communities are assessed to have an interconnected comprehensive plan and EIA. The report discusses how transparency, considerations between exploitive interests and environmental goals are dealt with in comprehensive plans and EIAs. In conclusion suggestions on how municipalities can improve integration of EIA in comprehensive plans is discussed.