Guidelines on the Strategic Environmental Assessment

After the EU had adopted Directive 2001/42/EC of the European Parliament for the introduction of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), the draft of a law for an introduction of the SEA was decided by the Federal Government. Since then certain plans and programs have had to be subjected to a systematic and in-depth review of their impact on the environment. Adverse environmental impacts should already be identified and considered during early planning processes. Simultaneously, the participation rights of the citizens and the associations were strengthened.

The aim of the project, was funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment in cooperation with the University of Lüneburg chair of public law and BioConsult SH, was the development of content, methods and guidelines for the implementation of the SEA for wind energy usage on the basis of environmental, planning and legal expertise. The EU SEA Directive, the draft bill for an SEA law and relevant amendments to the Federal Regional Planning Act, which became law, offered the necessary basis. The project plan included research, synopses and further developments of offshore SEA planning methods and participation procedures as well as the appropriate description and evaluation criteria for the most important environmental factors. The project served a practical operationalisation of the strategic environmental assessment, which should be developed into an instrument of environmental protection across different regions and the coordination of the regional planning of offshore wind energy. The project results were published in two separate volumes.