43 Mining Industry and SEA – An Example in Turkey Evren Yaylaci Brandenburg Technical University (BTU), Cottbus, Germany 43.1 Introduction This chapter examines possible advantages of SEA for the mining sector and ar- gues that project EIA is insufficient on its own for both environmental and social impact consideration and protection for the mining sector. Additionally, this chap- ter attempts to provide a preliminary evaluation of how SEA could improve the qualities of environmental and social impact assessment for mining industry in developing countries, such as Turkey. The mining sector is important for Turkey due to two reasons. The first one is that electricity production is highly dependent on coal-burning in Turkey. For ex- ample, the electricity produced from coal and lignite increased from 44.2% in 1993 to 47.6% in 2000 (SSI 2004). The second reason is that Turkey exports coal, chromite, boron and copper on a worldwide basis (Nationmaster 2004). In addition to these, the reason why Turkey has been chosen as an example is that Turkey demonstrates the general characteristics of a developing country. For instance, lack of environmental consideration in general and coal and lignite min- ing to supply the increased electricity demand, are similar to other developing countries world wide (IIASA and WEC 1998; UIC 2002). This situation has, in recent years, put enormous pressure on relatively clean and undisturbed environ- ment of these countries. At the same time, untouched mineral resources in rural areas of developing countries are becoming economic for extraction, which could cause environmental and social damages if the social and environmental assess- ments would not be practiced well. In addition, Turkey has to improve the present legislation and administration considering environmental issues in order to fulfil the requirements for joining the European Union (EU). This chapter has four sections. In Sect. 43.2, basic information about mining, such as the main phases and the characteristics of mining operations, some of the major environmental, social and economic impacts related to mining industry and the importance of SEA for mining sector are discussed. Implementing Strategic Environmental Assessment. Edited by Michael Schmidt, Elsa João and Eike Albrecht. © 2005 Springer-Verlag