An overview of strategic environmental assessment for watershed development planning in China: Moving towards more effective involvement in green development

Abstract

Among all kinds of developmental plans under the legal requirements for strategic environmental assessments (SEA) in China, SEA involving watershed development planning (WDP) is characterized by the longest evolution history, the most time-consuming procedure, and the most complicated assessment. In order to help understanding of the development and context of Chinese WDP-SEA, an introduction was made here to display its management rules, technical framework, and the progress in practice. Besides, by collecting 25 state-level cases completed during the period of 2014–2019, the substantive SEA performance was portrayed through the chief elements of evaluation indicators, recommendations on planning improvement and the mitigation measures. A literature review invovling 46 researches showed the procedural effectiveness has been ensured by increasingly complete regulations, technical guidelines, and rigorous review. To further promote contributions of the WDP-SEA to watershed environmental management and green development, it is suggested to strengthen the impact assessments related with biodiversity and climate change and linking SEA works with such new governing devices as the three-lines & one-list, and the river chief system in China.