Abstract
Evaluation is increasingly important in decision-making processes for the sustainable planning and design of port plans. It acts as a support for plan preparation, for making values, interests and needs explicit, and for exploring the components of the decision-making process itself. Evaluation can be likened to an “implicit tool” that can integrate approaches, methodologies and models, adapting to the many needs revealed during the decision-making process. New sustainability challenges call for new approaches to creating frameworks for the analysis and evaluation of plans and projects that allow the integration of multidimensional goals and values. Utilizing some selected case studies of port plans in six Italian cities, this paper explores how environmental assessment can become a tool for dialog and interaction among different fields of expertise to support dynamic learning processes, knowledge management and the creation of shared choices, using suitable approaches and tools. In this view, Integrated Spatial Assessment (ISA) can be useful in supporting decision-making processes on different scales and institutional levels to stimulate dialog between technical and political evaluations, referring to complex values that are part of conflicting and changing realities in which it has become imperative to operate according to sustainability principles.
Highlights
According to Therivel and Partidário [1] a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) can be defined as “the formalized, systematic and comprehensive process of evaluating the environmental impacts of a policy, plan or programme and its alternatives, including the preparation of a written report on the findings of that evaluation, and the use of these findings in publicly accountable decisionmaking.” European Directive 42/2001/EC, dating from 27 June, 2001 [2], concerns the assessment of the effects of some plans and programs on the environment, including port plans.The Environmental Report phase is critical for the assessment of plan effects
This paper focuses on the SEA modalities used in the development of some recent port plans in
A multi-methodological decision support system can be characterized by the interaction of Knowledge Bases (KB), Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS), Graphical User Interfaces (GUI), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Multi-Criteria Analyses (MCA), and Multi-Group Analyses (MGA) [32]
Summary
According to Therivel and Partidário [1] a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) can be defined as “the formalized, systematic and comprehensive process of evaluating the environmental impacts of a policy, plan or programme and its alternatives, including the preparation of a written report on the findings of that evaluation, and the use of these findings in publicly accountable decisionmaking.” European Directive 42/2001/EC, dating from 27 June, 2001 [2], concerns the assessment of the effects of some plans and programs on the environment, including port plans. In any case, measuring changes in environmental status depends on: developing scientific understanding of the links between human activity and environmental change; identifying appropriate environmental performance indicators; putting effective monitoring schemes in place to detect changes in variables; and, having baseline data against which to assess changes in site status Such complex interactions require a collaborative approach between port authority, scientists and other interested parties. Human use of ecosystem resources and services is increasing worldwide, generating pressures that alter ecosystem structure, functioning and ability to provide of services Most of this information has a spatial component because geographical distribution of impacts plays a relevant role in determining how they are perceived by decision-makers, as well as by the affected stakeholders and the general public.
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