ABSTRACT
Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is undertaken, both formally and informally, in an increasing number of countries and international organizations. This field has developed rapidly in the past decade and is now the subject of a voluminous literature, which continues to grow apace with the extension and diversification of SEA practice into new areas. Much of the emphasis still focuses on what might be termed the standard model based on environmental impact assessment (EIA), enshrined in the European SEA Directive (2001/42/EC) and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) SEA Protocol (2003). Internationally, however, this is only one of a number of forms of SEA that are applied to policy, and planning level initiatives and further variants and institution-specific adaptations, often with their own brand name, are being rolled out all the time, particularly in relation to lending and aid instruments used by donor agencies. These trends, in pushing the boundaries of SEA practice, expose new and residual issues about its role, theory and methodology.
