Strategic environmental assessment implementation in China — Five-year review and prospects Jing Wu a,c , I-Shin Chang b, ⁎, Olivia Bina a , Kin-Che Lam a , He Xu c a Centre of Strategic Environmental Assessment for China, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong b College of Environment and Resources, Inner Mongolia University, Inner Mongolia 010021, PR China c Research Center for Strategic Environmental Assessment, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, PR China abstract article info Article history: Received 20 January 2010 Received in revised form 23 April 2010 Accepted 24 April 2010 Available online 3 June 2010 Keywords: Strategic environmental assessment Effectiveness Impact-based SEA Evaluation criteria Through literature review and questionnaire survey, the purpose of this study is to understand current status and major fields of SEA implementation in China, and then to provide advice for future improvement of SEA system, according to objective evaluation of the effectiveness of SEA implementation. Major types and fields of SEA implementation were firstly studied to conclude that the attitude of decision-makers and competent authority of SEA implementation does generate direct impacts on SEA implementation. Current status of SEA implementation were then studied, in terms of timing, techniques and methodologies, public participation, information disclosure, alternative, and review organization, to conclude that SEA implementation in China is “impact-based SEA” and the major problems of SEA implementation are resulted from deficient and defective management of SEA system, such as laws, regulations, and means of management. In order to have objective evaluation on the effectiveness of SEA implementation, to understand good practice of SEA implementation, and to provide advice for future improvement of SEA system, it is necessary to establish reasonable and feasible evaluation criteria for the effectiveness of SEA implementation, based upon foreign experience and political, legislative, administrative and cultural characteristics of China. Various types and stages of SEA should be carefully considered to be included into the evaluation criteria for the effectiveness of SEA implementation. © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Preface Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) was initially introduced into China in early 1990s. Now in China, SEA is mainly implemented at three significant decision-making levels, regional environmental impact assessment (REIA), plan environmental impact assessment (PEIA), and policy environmental impact assessment (Policy EIA), respectively. SEA implementation was greatly promoted as the “Law of the People's Republic of China on Environmental Impact Assessment” (the EIA Law) became effective in September 2003. As explicitly regulated in the EIA Law, PEIA is the legal requirement and shall be implemented for major economic development activities, integrated plans (such as land use, regional development, watershed development, and marine develop- ment), and special plans (for example, industry, agriculture, husbandry, forestry, energy, water conservancy, transportation, municipal con- struction, tourism and natural resources development). For the past five years, there are remarkable progress on SEA development, especially for PEIA, in many aspects, such as infrastruc- ture construction, methodologies and techniques improvement, and practitioners training. In addition, abundant practical experience was gradually accumulated through many pilot studies and empirical cases. Nevertheless, there are many major and serious challenges to SEA implementation according to the perception of practitioners actively engaged in the planning and implementation of PEIA in China. Thus, the study is firstly to understand current status and major fields of SEA implementation in China through literature review and questionnaire survey. And secondly, reasonable advice for future improvement of SEA system is then provided according to objective evaluation of the effectiveness of SEA implementation. 2. Methodology Many international and domestic literatures from 2003 to 2009 were reviewed to appraise the progress of SEA implementation in China, in terms of major fields of applications, and technical and methodological research. A survey on current status and effectiveness of SEA implementation in China was also conducted through questionnaire during ‘China Strategic Environmental Assessment Forum’ in Hong Kong, in February 2009. The questionnaire composed of questions with pre-defined answers was divided into four parts. The first part is focusing on SEA experiences of the participants. The second part is designed to find out the techniques and methodologies Environmental Impact Assessment Review 31 (2011) 77–84 ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 471 4991460, +86 15048363776 (mobile); fax: +86 471 4991656. E-mail address: heart.chang@yahoo.com (I.-S. Chang). 0195-9255/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.eiar.2010.04.010 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Environmental Impact Assessment Review journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eiar