Preliminary Strategic Environmental Assessment of the Great Western Development Strategy: Safeguarding Ecological Security for a New Western China

The Great Western Development Strategy (GWDS) is a long term national campaign aimed at boosting development of the western area of China and narrowing the economic gap between the western and the eastern parts of China. The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) procedure was employed to assess the environmental challenges brought about by the western development plans. These plans include five key developmental domains (KDDs): water resource exploitation and use, land utilization, energy generation, tourism development, and ecological restoration and conservation. A combination of methods involving matrix assessment, incorporation of expert judgment and trend analysis was employed to analyze and predict the environmental impacts upon eight selected environmental indicators: water resource availability, soil erosion, soil salinization, forest destruction, land desertification, biological diversity, water quality and air quality. Based on the overall results of the assessment, countermeasures for environmental challenges that emerged were raised as key recommendations to ensure ecological security during the implementation of the GWDS. This paper is intended to introduce a consensus-based process for evaluating the complex, long term pressures on the ecological security of large areas, such as western China, that focuses on the use of combined methods applied at the strategic level

High speed rail comparative strategic assessments in EU member states

This paper explores the role and capacity of strategic level assessments in addressing the strategic dimension of High Speed Rail (HSR) proposals and influencing decision-making processes. The overall research objective was to find out to what extent opportunities for strategic thinking are being undertaken in HSR. Three different cases of high speed rail were compared – High Speed Rail 2 (HS2) in the UK, High Speed Rail Network (RFAV) in Portugal and European Gauge Railway Line Kaunas in the Lithuanian-Latvian Border (Rail Baltica 2). Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) effectiveness literature was reviewed to draw on criteria that could establish a comparative framework to explain how environmental and sustainability assessments were undertaken in the three aforementioned European high speed rail case studies. Research results allow us to conclude that an SEA or a sustainability assessment/appraisal (SA) will be most beneficial if developed before any HSR project to first determine if HSR is really necessary and strategically justifiable to the achievement of both environmental and sustainability objectives. Results achieved suggest that even though the SEA and SA in the three cases studied can be said to have influenced the planning process mostly at project-level decisions, it also shows a missed opportunity to contribute to developing a high level strategy for HSR that addresses several strategic issues, assessing options before they are undertaken

Social Lerning and innovation in Sustinability Transitions – Seven Portuguese initiatives compared

TRUST (social innovation sTRategies for sUSTainability transitions) is a research project that focus on sustainability transition (ST) initiatives in urban and rural Portugal, supported on social learning and innovation. The research aims to investigate forms of social innovation (SI) that can drive community change at local scale, in the context of different social-ecological systems. The analytical process is based upon seven selected initiatives, which have as common purpose to create locally based ST, and the adopted strategies that can enable change in approaches, routines, practices, systems and mind-sets – which we recognize as components of SI. The state of art has been reviewed on three core concepts - SI, ST and Governance - and a conceptual model was developed for SI to enable ST for transformative change. A participatory research approach is adopted and applied to local communities in specific urban and rural social-ecological contexts in Aveiro, Évora and Lisboa. Results from empirical observation are compared in seven case studies: (i) “A Avó veio trabalhar” about active ageing and intergenerational relationships (ii) “Bela Flor Respira” about sustainable systems and transformation of behaviours; (iii) “Ciclaveiro” about sustainable mobility and cultural habits; (iv) “Civic Lab” about community well-being and empowerment; (v) “Cooperative Minga” about business models and knowledge transfer; (vi) “Montado” about business models and ecosystem services; (vii) “Organisation of Fisherwomen in Murtosa” about gender equality and transformation of mind-sets. In this presentation we will share the results of the analysis so far available, through comparison of these seven initiatives by looking into actors’ values, motivations and behaviours driven by contextual dynamics, and the governance system capacity to foster SI for transformative change. Lessons are shared on to what extent these initiatives promote SI (and how they do it) and if they are able of leading transformative changes, as an experiment to theoretically and empirically explore how to enable social innovation for transformative change

social lerning and innovations in sustainability transitions: a research in progress

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