Environmental Policy Assessment Research Articles

Exploring the impact of population urbanization on the green economy development: A case study of 30 provincial-level administrative regions in China

The green economy development (GED) has emerged as a paramount objective for urban progress in the 21st century, emphasizing the harmonious advancement across economic, social, and environmental domains. Yet, the impact of population urbanization, a pivotal driver of urban evolution, on GED remains ambiguous. Addressing this knowledge gap necessitates investigations at specific stages of rapid population urbanization in a certain country. In order to explore the relationship between them, this study focuses on China, a distinctive economic entity, utilizing the DEA-SBM model with unexpected outputs to assess its GED efficiency (GE). Additionally, employing the Tobit model, the study scrutinizes the impact of population urbanization on GE in China from 2000 to 2020. Mechanism analyses are further conducted to explore the key roles of environmental policies, population density, and R&D in fostering GE. Findings reveal: (1) a U-shaped relationship between population urbanization and GE; (2) significant enhancement of GE through green credit policy, alongside positive moderating the impact of environmental protection on GE; conversely, environmental assessment policy notably reduce GE, while positively moderating the impact of industrial structure rationalization on GE; (3) a U-shaped relationship between population urbanization and GE under low population density, with population urbanization significantly diminishing GE as population density reaches a critical level; (4) higher amount of R&D personnel corresponding to increased GE at equivalent population urbanization levels. Finally, several management strategies derived from these findings are offered, aiming to assist other developing nations in effectively improving their urban GE.

Integrating Cost-Effective Measurements and CFD Modeling for Accurate Air Quality Assessment

Assessing air quality in urban areas is vital for protecting public health, and low-cost sensor networks help quantify the population’s exposure to harmful pollutants effectively. This paper introduces an innovative method to calibrate air-quality sensor networks by combining CFD modeling with dependable AQ measurements. The developed CFD model is used to simulate traffic-related PM10 dispersion in a 1.6 × 2 km2 urban area. Hourly simulations are conducted, and the resulting concentrations are cross-validated against high-quality measurements. By offering detailed 3D information at a micro-scale, the CFD model enables the creation of concentration maps at sensor locations. Through regression analysis, relationships between low-cost sensor (LCS) readings and modeled outcomes are established and used for network calibration. The study demonstrates the methodology’s capability to provide aid to low-cost devices during a representative 24 h period. The precision of a CFD model can also guide optimal sensor placement based on prevailing meteorological and emission scenarios and refine existing networks for more accurate urban air quality representation. The usage of cost-effective air quality networks, high-quality monitoring stations, and high-resolution air quality modeling combines the strengths of both top-down and bottom-up approaches for air quality assessment. Therefore, the work demonstrated plays a significant role in providing reliable pollutant monitoring and supporting the assessment of environmental policies, aiming to address health issues related to urban air pollution.

Abstract LB143: Environmental assessment of alcohol-related policies and practices at US cancer organizations

Abstract In 1998, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) declared that the consumption of alcoholic beverages was a class I carcinogen to humans; the designation was reaffirmed in 2007 and 2010. Despite this, approximately 4% of new cancer cases worldwide in 2020 were attributable to alcohol intake. Growing evidence indicates that alcohol use increases the risk of cancers of the upper aerodigestive tract (oral cavity, pharynx, esophagus, and larynx) and lower digestive tract (colon, rectum, and liver). Over half of the 6.3 million cases of these cancers are considered preventable, underscoring notable gaps regarding alcohol consumption and cancer prevention. Despite (1) the longstanding designation of alcohol as an established carcinogen, (2) an increasing and consistent body of data noting alcohol as a leading contributor to the global cancer burden, and (3) the publication of policy statements by authoritative sources, it is unclear whether cancer-focused institutions are aware of these facts or are acting on these data (i.e., implementing evidence-based policies and practices to limit alcohol-related cancer risks for their employees, guests, or the public). Driven by these data and shortfalls, we developed a 22-item survey to inquire about cancer organizations' interpretation of current literature, existing policies, decision-making processes, inclination to act, and perceived responsibility to lead in the realms of public education and policy implementation to mitigate alcohol-related cancer risks in the public’s interest. The survey will be sent to over 100 leading U.S. cancer organizations, including NCI-designated- and other major cancer centers, cancer-oriented professional organizations, and cancer-research organizations. It underwent rigorous testing for clarity, brevity, and expected response time, also drawing upon the expertise of five survey-science professionals. The study is under institutional review board (IRB) review, and we anticipate the survey’s distribution in the first quarter of the calendar year 2024. We expect to share the survey instrument and results during the meeting. Citation Format: Meghan Si, Stephanie Martch, Sanjay Shete, Ernest Hawk. Environmental assessment of alcohol-related policies and practices at US cancer organizations [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 2 (Late-Breaking, Clinical Trial, and Invited Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(7_Suppl):Abstract nr LB143.

Can environmental legislation protect a threatened apex predator across different land tenures?

Ecological impact assessments are undertaken in compliance with legislative mandates to evaluate the effects of proposed habitat modification. This task becomes complex when evaluating the impacts on highly mobile species like apex predators. Despite their importance to ecosystem function, environmental policies may inadequately protect apex predator habitat. Here we provide a case study that examines the efficacy of legislation and impact assessment tools in protecting habitat for a wide-ranging and threatened apex predator. The high resource requirements of apex predators, and their utilisation of large areas of high-quality habitat make them ideal conservation surrogates for other less resource demanding species, and as such good case studies in assessing the effectiveness of policy. The powerful owl (Ninox strenua) occurs across many landscape types throughout its distribution, including large tracts of private property and public landholdings, making this species difficult to assess through impact assessments. To examine the level of legislative protection for powerful owls, and how well their habitat use is captured, we compared GPS tracking data to environmental policy and industry impact assessment tools. We found that legislation has limited potential to protect powerful owl habitat and owls are likely dismissed from impact assessments due to their cryptic and wide-ranging behavioural traits. The existing legislative safeguards seem inadequate, and these shortcomings are likely contributing to species decline. There is a critical need for policy to be applicable to both public and private land tenure, and for legislation and impact assessment tools to incorporate research data for effective conservation and management.

SEA and EIA: uncertain boundaries in Spain

ABSTRACT Environmental impact assessment (EIA) of projects and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of policies, plans and programmes allow environmental aspects to be incorporated into decision-making. The literature and regulations sometimes present SEA and EIA as isolated silos, but in practice there are intermediate approaches. This paper discusses a number of case studies where the application of EIA and SEA is conceptually unclear, although legally appropriate. The application of SEA or EIA depends in practice on the name of the planning document used, rather than its strategic character, with non-strategic SEAs and strategic EIAs due to a mismatch between planning and EA. The gradual transition between SEA and EIA makes it advisable to establish similar administrative procedures, as well as a common screening stage to determine not only whether or not the proposal should be subject to EA, but also the most appropriate approach. More than one EA process may be necessary throughout the planning cycle, requiring effective tiering. The regulations should define what is considered strategic, and regulate the tiering between SEA and EIA processes.

The last quarter for sustainable environment in basketball: the carbon footprint of basketball teams in Türkiye and Lithuania

Today, the sports industry is one of the most important sources of concern due to its negative environmental effects. Especially due to the intense competition schedule, teams and fans have to travel constantly. In this context, the aim of this study, which aims to fill the gap in the literature, is to calculate the carbon footprints of the teams in the Turkish and Lithuanian national basketball leagues based on their travels in the 2021–22 season. The research was limited to Turkey and Basketball national basketball league teams. In the study, the travel distances of the teams in both countries during the 2021–22 basketball season were used as a data set. In the study, the values used in the carbon footprint calculation of 2022 by the United Kingdom Government GHG Conversion Factors for Company Reporting and accepted as the IPCC carbon dioxide emission factor were used. While the carbon footprint, which is obtained by multiplying the emission factor directly by the distance covered by the vehicle type, is presented in tons; The average value calculated for each person was calculated in kg. In the sports sector, basketball is one of the most important sources of transportation-related carbon footprint due to its being one of the team sports and its intense competition schedule. According to the results of this research conducted specifically for Turkey and Lithuania, the total carbon footprint calculated for both countries is 53,029 tons. To make an assessment for both countries, in order to reduce travel based on sports; Arranging league calendars to include less travel, dissemination of green and clean energy-using (electric) vehicles, raising the awareness of club managers, developing environmental assessment policies specific to basketball federations, and increasing cooperation through awareness and training activities seem feasible for sustainable environment and basketball goals.

Regulation and decarbonization: how can environmental regulations more effectively facilitate industrial low-carbon transitions?

Environmental policies play an important role in the process of industrial low-carbon transition in developing countries. From the perspective of the impact condition and mechanisms, we discuss how to improve their effectiveness to give full play to the positive impact of environmental regulations. Based on provincial industrial data from 2003 to 2019 in China, this study uses a threshold regression model and endogenous regression to reveal the impact condition and mechanisms of environmental regulations on industrial low-carbon transition. The results suggest that (1) technological innovation capability and cost-bearing capacity are the key conditions for environmental regulations to exert a positive impact on low-carbon transition. (2) Environmental regulations have a positive impact on low-carbon transition through technological innovation (technology), resource reallocation (capital), and skill premium (labor). Research on the implementation conditions and mechanisms of environmental regulations will help policy-makers formulate appropriate and reasonable environmental regulations and eliminate the obstacles between environmental regulations and low-carbon transition, while an assessment of China's environmental policies will provide a reference for environmental governance in other developing countries.

Overlooked CO2 emissions induced by air pollution control devices in coal-fired power plants

China's efforts to mitigate air pollution from its large-scale coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) have involved the widespread use of air pollution control devices (APCDs). However, the operation of these devices relies on substantial electricity generated by CFPPs, resulting in indirect CO2 emissions. The extent of CO2 emissions caused by APCDs in China remains uncertain. Here, using a plant-level dataset, we quantified the CO2 emissions associated with electricity consumption by APCDs in China's CFPPs. Our findings reveal a significant rise in CO2 emissions attributed to APCDs, increasing from 1.48 Mt in 2000 to 51.7 Mt in 2020. Moreover, the contribution of APCDs to total CO2 emissions from coal-fired power generation escalated from 0.12% to 1.19%. Among the APCDs, desulfurization devices accounted for approximately 80% of the CO2 emissions, followed by dust removal and denitration devices. Scenario analysis indicates that the lifespan of CFPPs will profoundly impact future emissions, with Nei Mongol, Shanxi, and Shandong provinces projected to exhibit the highest emissions. Our study emphasizes the urgent need for a comprehensive assessment of environmental policies and provides valuable insights for the integrated management of air pollutants and carbon emissions in CFPPs.

How Does Human Thinking Activity Impact the Health and Stability of The Atmosphere?

This article explores the impact of human activities on the health and stability of the atmosphere, including greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions, climate change, and atmospheric circulation changes. These issues not only affect ecosystems and economic development but also directly threaten human health and survival. To protect the health and stability of the atmosphere, comprehensive measures are needed to reduce emissions, strengthen monitoring and management, promote public awareness and education. Future research directions include atmospheric simulation and prediction, pollution source analysis and control, ecosystem and biodiversity research, health management and risk assessment, transport and transformation mechanism research, environmental quality monitoring technology research, aerosol research, greenhouse gas emission and emission reduction technology research, environmental policy assessment, and research on the relationship between health and climate change. Only by taking measures and strengthening research, international cooperation, and public participation can the health and sustainable development of the atmosphere truly be achieved.

E-DSGE model with endogenous capital utilization rate

Environmental policy research has increased due to stricter policies aligned with climate goals. However, to achieve the goal of net-zero emissions, the adoption of even stronger policies and increased carbon taxes is necessary, with transition risk becoming a major concern for companies. Even though governments worldwide have been employing a range of methods such as carbon tax, cap-and-trade, and intensity targets to mitigate the impact of climate change, a pivotal debate around determining the optimal policy that reduces emissions without harming the economy continues. Our paper delves into the environmental policy assessment emphasizing the role of endogenous capital utilization rates, which have hitherto been largely disregarded in literature. We study how endogenous capital utilization rate affects the transmission mechanism of economic shocks and the optimal environmental policy choice. To evaluate the quantitative impact of the transmission mechanism, we introduce distinct features to the environmental-dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (E-DSGE) model, including endogenous capital utilization, time-varying depreciation of capital, and environment quality shocks. We find that the complementarity between energy and capital leads to an amplification effect of the conventional transmission mechanism. Our model with these ingredients ranks any carbon tax below 25% as the best policy in terms of welfare improvement.

Policy effectiveness and environmental policy Assessment: A model of the environmental benefits of renewable energy for sustainable development

The further development of integrated energy systems at the city-region level is an important way to improve the efficiency of integrated energy use, enhance the use of renewable energy and improve the economy and safety of energy operations. The development of integrated energy systems in urban areas is still in its infancy, and there is a lack of professional energy indicators in terms of comprehensive evaluation, as well as a lack of linkages with engineering practice. The development of operational and adaptable evaluation indicators and methods aids in assessing the impact of integrated energy systems on the environment, economy, and society. The quantitative processing results of indicator weights and indicator values are given, supported by historical operational data of the energy system, calculated data, and evaluation survey data. First, the fundamental model of comprehensive evaluation is built. The initial weights of indicators are then determined using the hierarchical analysis approach, and the entropy weight method is utilized to make changes to generate the target system’s combination weights. Finally, the fuzzy evaluation approach does the entire assessment computation to focus on and improve the important indicators and provide recommendations for optimizing the system’s overall advantages. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method through comparative experiments.

Environmental Assessment of Local Food Policies through a Territorial Life Cycle Approach

Sub-national governments play a vital role in achieving food-related sustainability goals through the re-territorialization of agriculture. While the environmental impact of such policies cannot be reduced to decreased food miles, multiple methodological bottlenecks prevent seizing their entire potential. In this paper, a territorial life cycle analysis is adapted and used to comprehend the cradle-to-grave impact of local food policies. This is conducted by assessing the impact of a territory’s food-producing and consuming activities before and after the local food policies implementation. To evaluate the feasibility of the methodology, the municipality of Mouans-Sartoux (southeast France), engaged in local food policies for twenty years, is chosen. Four impact categories are modeled: global warming, fossil resource depletion, water consumption, and land use. The findings show that local food policies drive direct and indirect changes in farming and retail practices, but a more significant transformation is achieved by inhabitants, mostly by decreasing meat and ultra-processed product consumption. All actions summed up decrease the local food system’s impact by between 7 and 19%. These results demonstrate the efficiency of the method to provide a holistic environmental assessment at a mesoscale as well as the environmental efficacity of the local authority’s intervention in food-related matters.

The state of environmental justice analyses in NEPA: The case of Arizona

As the unequal impacts of environmental harms and climate change have become apparent, environmental justice (EJ) is an increasingly salient matter in US environmental policy and impact assessments. The EJ impacts of important infrastructural decisions and investments are most often analyzed in environmental impact statements required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)—a globally influential piece of legislation—with significant discretion given to organizations on how to conduct these analyses. There is little systematic understanding of how these analyses are conducted and what the findings of these analyses tend to be. In this paper, we analyze a decade's worth of EJ analyses that appear in environmental impact statements conducted in the state of Arizona in the US as a first attempt to fill this gap in understanding. We find that throughout EJ analyses 11 different demographic indicators, ten different community boundaries, and eight different population thresholds are used with considerable variation to identify EJ communities. The variation in how these criteria are applied points to an inconsistent definition of an EJ community throughout the federal government. Still, analyses consistently do not find negative EJ impacts to be likely. While NEPA has promoted positive environmental outcomes in the past, it may currently be failing to do this for EJ. We highlight possible flaws in EJ analysis methods and shortcomings of the NEPA process itself that may cumulatively obstruct meaningful EJ consideration. With the widespread influence of NEPA on environmental impact assesment approaches globally, our findings raise questions that EJ analyses in environmental impact assesments outside the US could suffer from the same methodological shortcomings we identify.

The environmental regulation and policy assessment effect on the road to green recovery transformation

This study examines how environmental regulation supports the development of a green economy through green technology innovation. We also study the impact of new regional environmental regulations and their different types on the emergence of new initiatives. However, past research has ignored the effect of economic growth on environmental regulation. Accordingly, we predict that 29 developing nations with strong environmental policies will benefit from the new regional environmental regulations. Our findings demonstrate that new environmental regulations are significantly and positively correlated with low levels of economic development. Other economic development growth results have a weaker but still significant association and are not significantly associated with lnFDI transformations, with the emergence of environmental regulation start-ups. The generation of gray knowledge also significantly affects both gray and green environmental regulations. Additionally, we discovered that stricter environmental regulatory frameworks negatively impacted the start-up of new businesses across various sectors, particularly the fossil fuel industry. Moreover, we distinguish between the high and low impacts of environmental regulations in various cities and offer applicable strategies for emerging economies.

Assessment of Environmental Policies and Institutions for Effective Air Quality Management in Nepal

Air pollution is a serious environmental threat in major cities of Nepal. The major emission source of air pollutants is vehicular emission, resuspension of street dust litter during dry climatic conditions, black smoke plumes from brick kilns, and refuse burning. Effective plans and policies are required for the effective management and monitoring of air pollution. This study aims to review environmental policies and plans prevalent in Nepal and assess their effectiveness in controlling air pollution. The study is based on the literature review and a questionnaire survey using Najam's 5C framework for policy analysis. Although several national policies, plans, laws and standards have been formulated and international agreements have been ratified for the management of air pollution, separate policy dedicated to air pollution management has not been formulated in Nepal. According to Najam's framework, the content, context, and commitment of the overall policies, plans, and agreements for managing air quality in Nepal were assessed as effective. However, the capacity of the implementor, client support, and management coordination was found ineffective. This study recommends that a separate policy on air quality management is required, while the capacities of stakeholders and coordination mechanisms should be strengthened to improve the country's air quality.

Assessment of the highway logistics on carbon footprint

Developing the quality of the types of greenhouse gasses used within the global environment and reducing carbon emissions are recognized as the main of current logistic changes policies. The paper aims to evaluate the contribution of the impact of highway logistics activity, one of the most important causes of carbon dioxide emissions, on the carbon footprint of the Southern Central Anatolian provinces. In this context, multiple regression analyses were conducted in three locations in the Southern Central Anatolian (Antalya, Kayseri, Konya) involving a total of 12 monthly highway logistics activities and carbon emissions. Before analysis, summarized the status of all logistic activities in the study area and collected data related to carbon emission in these regions. However, the coupling relationship between carbon emissions and logistic conditions in regions was calculated by the regression model. The carbon footprint linked to logistics, for Antalya was 87% (R=0.87), for Kayseri was 94% (R=0.94), and for Konya was 63% (R=0.63). It can be seen that, in the multiple regression analysis, Kayseri has a higher carbon footprint than Antalya and Konya when an estimation of the quantile was carbon footprint. The main academic contribution of this study brings a new perspective to the future assessment of environmental policies and prepares a quantitative principle for the implementation of future carbon footprint policies.

Distribution patterns and transportation behavior of alkylphenol polyethoxylate degradation metabolites among river, port area, and coastal water bodies of Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

In this study, we conducted a comprehensive study of the distribution, transportation behavior and potential ecological risk of alkylphenol polyethoxylates (APnEOs) in the aquatic environments of Kaohsiung City, Taiwan because little information is available regarding the fate of APnEOs in the water bodies of a total environment. At Love River, APnEOs concentrations were much higher at upstream of interception stations L15 (27.33 ± 1.22 μg/L) and L16 (6.31 ± 0.14 μg/L) than at downstream of interception stations L1–L14 (0.69–2.54 μg/L). Additionally, the average ethoxy (EO) chain lengths of APnEOs at L15 and L16 were longer than at L1–L14. These observations were attributed to the sluice between L14 and L15 that intercepts and accumulates untreated sewage from upstream areas and to the infrastructure of the sewage system that prevents domestic sewage from flowing downstream in the river and to the Kaohsiung Port Area. At Kaohsiung Port Area, APnEO concentrations ranging from 0.63 to 6.50 μg/L were measured. The concentration range and average EO chain length of these APnEOs were similar to those of the downstream stretch of the river, which was attributed to the mixing efficiency of the Kaohsiung Port Area and Love River through tidal exchange. At Cijin Coastal Area, APnEO concentrations ranged from 0.14 to 18.77 μg/L. Notably, the APnEO concentration of surface waters was much higher than that of bottom waters. This observation was attributed to the sewage discharged from the ocean outfall buoying up to the surface instead of mixing with surrounding bottom waters. In potential ecological risk, 19 of 39 sampling points exceeded toxic equivalency of 1 μg/L, and approximately 48.7% of the sampling points would exceed the threshold. The result provides insight into the environmental implications of APnEOs contamination in aquatic environments and useful information for environmental policy and ecological risk assessments.

Farmland use data and remote sensing for ex-post assessment of CAP environmental performances: An application to soil quality dynamics in Lombardy

With the reform of the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2013, subsidies to farms are now bound to the fulfilment of environmentally friendly measures, such as crop diversification and allocation of a share of their farmland to Ecological Focus Areas, the so-called “Greening requirements”. Research on the effects of these policy changes so far have focused mainly on land use transition; however, a detailed investigation of how CAP greening affects the properties of agricultural land is required to assess the actual environmental benefits of the reform. In this study, we present a first attempt to assess the impacts of CAP greening on selected soil quality indices in Lombardy, a populated region in northern Italy where high-intensity agriculture is widespread. We combine high resolution (10/30 m) soil indices from remote sensing based on Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 data with a regional administrative database covering all agricultural parcels of the region. We then perform a correlation analysis to investigate whether and to what extent greening prescriptions affect the soil quality indices from 2014, representing pre-greening conditions, to 2017, representing greening conditions after 3 years of implementation. Our analysis indicates a high persistence of soil quality indicators and suggests that some crops might have a significant impact on soil quality dynamics, along with farm’s compliance with CAP greening. Although we identified some uncertainties in the soil indices, by integrating a large volume of data and an efficient processing algorithm our method paves the way for ex-post environmental performance assessment of agricultural policies.

Governance challenges and opportunities for implementing resource recovery from organic waste streams in urban areas of Latin America: insights from Chía, Colombia

Across the globe, there is increasing interest in implementing circular approaches to urban sanitation and waste management to mitigate environmental challenges and promote sustainable business opportunities. In Latin America where 80% of the population live in urban areas, there is limited investigation into the enabling factors and governance barriers that are critical to implementing circular economy strategies in urban areas. This paper aims at assessing the governance capacity to implement resource recovery from organic waste streams in the municipality of Chía, Colombia, through applying the Governance Capacity Framework in a participatory process with local stakeholders. The findings highlight the importance of local initiatives for resource recovery that allow experimentation, raise awareness and foster collaboration, as well as mechanisms available for public participation in decision-making processes as enabling factors. Meanwhile, the inadequate monitoring and assessment of environmental strategies and policies, inadequate sharing of information among stakeholders and the relative low awareness of potential benefits of recovering resources from organic waste streams, especially among public sector actors, emerge as key barriers. Beyond Chía, the results provide insights on crucial factors for ensuring sufficient governance capacity in other urban areas in low- and middle-income countries which are considering circular approaches to urban sanitation and waste management. The findings also provide an empirical basis to advance the understanding of the governance conditions necessary for implementing resource recovery from organic waste streams, upon which further applications of the governance capacity framework along with participatory aspects in other similar urban contexts could build.

Practitioners' perspectives on health in Strategic Environmental Assessment of spatial planning policies in Scotland

ObjectivesLocal authorities in Scotland are required to produce a Local Development Plan (LDP), which allocates sites for development and sets policies to guide decisions on planning applications. As part of this, local authorities must undertake a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). This is a structured assessment of likely environmental impacts, which includes human health. This study explores how SEA practitioners and SEA consultation authorities consider health. Study designQualitative study design using eight in-depth semi-structured interviews. MethodsIndividual interviews were carried out with SEA practitioners from six local authority areas in Scotland and two SEA consultation authorities. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and analysed thematically. ResultsRespondents articulated a broad perspective on health, but this was not reflected in SEA practice. Barriers to considering health more fully in SEA included low confidence in assessing health, limited partnership working with public health professionals and the lack of a consultation authority able to cover all aspects of health. Respondents valued partnership work between public health and planning professionals. ConclusionThis study suggests recent work in Scotland to increase understanding of the role of spatial planning to influence health has been successful. However, further work is required to expand this to include links between spatial planning and health inequalities. SEA in Scotland does not currently support holistic consideration of health and health inequalities. Strong partnership working between public health and other sectors can increase understanding of links with health and create healthy places.