Environmental impact assessment (EIA) and strategic environmental assessment (SEA): An exploration of synergies through development of a strategic environmental framework (SEF)

The synergies between Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) have often been debated. In the right context, SEA can contribute to the efficiency of the EIA process, for example, when informing the scoping stage of the EIA. It can also compensate for some of the EIAs shortcomings, particularly in the provision of an effective monitoring framework. This paper reports on the SEA carried out on a port and industrial zone master plan in Abu Dhabi, UAE. This assessment is unusual in so much as it is a SEA of a privately funded master plan; is one of the first to be carried out in the Middle East (therefore not subject to EU Directive 2001/42/EC); and has been followed directly by an EIA of the same development. As such it provided a unique chance to adapt the SEA process and fully exploit any possible synergies between the two environmental assessment processes.