Quality and effectiveness of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) as a tool for water management within the South African context

F Retief

doi:10.4314/wsa.v33i2.49052

Abstract

The water management sector has been one of the first sectors in South Africa to explore the application of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) during the mid 1990s. This paper presents the results of a performance evaluation on the quality and effectiveness of a key landmark SEA case study, namely the Mhlathuze Catchment SEA. The case study provides an ideal opportunity to gain valuable insights into the interpretation as well as the strengths and weaknesses of SEA as applied within the water management sector. The research results showed that the SEA achieved an 'average' overall input quality performance and a mixed output effectiveness performance. Reviewed against 'direct output' indicators it achieved a 'poor' effectiveness performance results. However, the SEA also achieved significant successes in terms of 'indirect outputs', such as a more holistic approach to water management, facilitated more effective public participation and contributed to broader strategic planning in the department. The paper concludes by making recommendations to improve the quality and effectiveness of SEA within the water sector.

Highlights

These are exciting times for anyone involved with environmental assessment in general and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) in particular
The reason why progress in performance evaluation has been so slow could be attributed to the very difficult conceptual and methodological challenges it presents (Cashmore et al, 2004; Partidario and Fischer, 2004; Partidario and Arts, 2005), and because it requires some level of agreement on the identity and application of SEA (Sadler, 2004), which has not been forthcoming from an international perspective
This paper presents a retrospective performance evaluation of the ‘quality’ and eventual ‘effectiveness’ of the Mhlathuze case study, which provides an ideal opportunity to gain valuable insights and new perspectives on how SEA performed as a decision-aiding tool within the water management sector

Summary

Introduction

These are exciting times for anyone involved with environmental assessment in general and SEA in particular. It is based on the understanding that SEA involves a context-specific, sustainability-led, participative, pro-active and efficient process, which requires different methodologies during screening, situation analysis, scoping, environmental assessment and monitoring and review phases, the results of which need to be documented and communicated to decision makers and interested and affected parties (IAPs). ‘The main aim of the SEA initiative was to provide an information base and decision-making framework to ensure that relevant sections of the NWA are implemented with regards to SFRAs. The SEA would not, itself, make. KPI 4.1: Did the SEA ensure availability of the assessment results early enough to influence the decision making process? As mentioned in the previous section SEA was identified by DWAF as a decision-aiding tool that could inform water use authorisation, but could help realise the objectives of the NWA.

Methodology KPIs

Findings

Conclusion