Sustainable Urban Development Volume 2

The Environmental Assessment Methods

Mark Deakin, Gordon Mitchell, Peter Nijkamp, Ron Vreeker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781134354375
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

In this book, the second of a three-volume series, leading authorities on the methodology of environmental assessment provide a unique insight into questions of critical importance to sustainable urban development. Using the framework and protocols set out in Volume 1, Volume 2 examines how well the environmental assessment methods evaluate the ecological integrity of urban development and equity of the resulting resource distribution. The examination focuses on:

• the instruments of environmental assessment
• approaches to environmental assessment based in systems-thinking
• methods for environmental, economic and social assessments
• their use in evaluating the sustainability of urban development.

The Sustainable Urban Development Series contains the research and debate of the BEQUEST (Building, Environmental Quality Evaluation for Sustainability) network funded by the European Commission. Together the books provide a framework, set of protocols, environmental assessment methods and toolkit for policy makers, academics, professionals and advanced level students in urban planning and studies, as well as other areas of the built environment.

1

Introduction

Mark Deakin, Gordon Mitchell, Peter Nijkamp and Ron Vreeker

Volume 1 of this book series began by outlining the principles, underlying concepts, model, vision and methodology of an integrated sustainable urban development (SUD) (Curwell et al., 2005). This drew attention to the framework BEQUEST has developed for such an understanding of SUD and went on to set out the protocol(s) the network argues should be followed for carrying out an environmental assessment. In this regard, Volume 1 argued:

• SUD’s goal is to improve the quality of life for an increasingly urban population;

• actions aiming to improve the quality of life need a simple, clear framework for analysing the sustainability of urban development;

• this framework for analysis requires to provide a vision and methodology capable of bringing such concerns into the scope of actions targeting improvements in the quality of life;

• within this vision and methodology, protocol(s) provide a middle ground between the environmental assessment methods available to evaluate SUD and bring about improvements in the quality of life;

• such evaluations of SUD must transcend purely environmental factors and embed themselves securely in more comprehensive and integrated environmental, social and economic assessments;

• a community of academic and professional advisers is emerging, willing and able to use new information technology as a means of supporting such assessments and making the evaluations they produce available to local, regional, national and international agencies.

Having set out the BEQUEST framework, Volume 1 went on to develop the protocol for environmental assessment. This protocol was then presented as a set of guidelines to follow in assessing the environmental impact of urban development and as procedures for:

• ‘screening’ urban development activities;

• ‘scoping’ key sustainable development issues;

• ‘clarifying’ what activities – environmental, economic and social issues – need to be addressed;

• carrying out the required ‘consultations’ with affected parties;

• ‘procuring’ environmental assessments of urban development plans, programmes and projects;

• ‘assessing’ whether the said urban development plans, programmes and projects build the capacity which cities need to carry their cultural heritage and produce forms of human settlement that are sustainable;

• ‘reporting’ on the ecological integrity and equity of the resulting resource distribution and ability of the public to participate in decisions taken about the future of the city, its cultural heritage and forms of human settlement;

• ‘monitoring’ the sustainability of urban development.

The said protocol has its origins in the European Commission’s (1997 and 2001) Directives on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and points at the procedures to follow in assessing whether or not urban development plans, programmes and projects provide the capacity that cities need to support their cultural heritage and produce forms of human settlement which are sustainable. However, as Volume 1 went some length to point out, while such a representation of the protocol is valuable for the generic description of the environmental assessment process it advances, the procedures set out are currently not detailed enough to overcome the risk and uncertainty stakeholders face in trying to use them as methods for evaluating the sustainability of urban development.

As Volume 1 made clear, this is because the legal instruments surrounding environmental assessment are themselves insufficiently developed, too generic and not specific enough for stakeholders as diverse as planners, property developers, designers and construction contractors to follow in evaluating the sustainability of urban development. In response to this, Volume 1 went on to set out the ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ gates of environmental assessment and develop the five (planning, property development, design, construction, operation and use) protocols for evaluating the sustainability of urban development. Having done this, Volume 1 went on to outline the directory of environmental assessment methods available for such evaluations and reported on how they are currently being used to evaluate the sustainability of urban development. While this drew attention to the legal instruments of environmental assessment and tense relationship emerging between the ‘hard’ certainties of the bio-physical sciences and the more uncertain and risky sphere of economic and social relations, it did not provide a detailed account of the assessment methods, or examination of how those listed in the directory are currently being used to evaluate the sustainability of urban development. This is the object of Volume 2 in this series on Sustainable Urban Development.

Volume 2

Volume 2 on SUD takes the BEQUEST framework and protocols as its point of departure and brings together a number of contributions from recognized experts in environmental and SUD assessment and leading authorities in the use of such methods. The contributions provide a unique insight into environmental assessment and methodological questions of critical importance to SUD. Volume 2 offers 23 contributions from leading authorities on the methodology of environmental assessment and are presented under the following headings:

• environmental assessment instruments;

• systems thinking-based approaches to assessment;

• environmental assessment methods;

• methods for environmental, economic and social assessments;

• evaluations of the ecological integrity, equity of resource distribution and participation of the public in matters concerning the future of urban development and sustainability of cities.

Part 1 of Volume 2 sets out the statutory instruments put in place by the European Commission (EC) to assess the environmental impact of urban development proposals. Focusing on the EU’s 97/11/CE and 2001/42/CE Directives, it examines the development and use of strategic environmental assessment and environmental impact assessment to evaluate the sustainability of the development programme for the 2006 Winter Games. Part 2 uses these statutory instruments of environmental assessment as a platform to examine the systems thinking lying behind the methods, their approach to SUD and the role evaluation plays in this. Using this examination as a stage to account for further developments in environmental assessment, Part 3 sets out the methods that can be used to evaluate the sustainability of urban development. This section accounts for recent developments in the use of cost–benefit analysis (CBA) and multi-criteria analysis (MCA), contingent valuation method (CVM) and the hedonic price method used in environmental assessments. Part 4 examines the assessment methods that have recently emerged to meet the particular economic and social challenge SUD poses. Here attention is drawn to the environmental, economic and social assessments that have recently developed to evaluate SUD.

Parts 3 and 4 of the book are taken from BEQUEST’s survey of the environmental assessment methods currently available for evaluating SUD. So far the survey has identified that 60 such methods are available to assess the environmental impact of urban development and sustainability of cities. It has also identified the methods that have been applied to the planning, property development, design, construction, operational and use activities of the urban development process and used by cities to evaluate the sustainability issues this raises at the various scales of assessment. The survey can be accessed via the website address for the BEQUEST project: http://www.surveying.salford.ac.uk/bq/extra. The website provides a list of the methods surveyed and in a number of cases offers hypertext links to the case-studies they have been drawn from. This provides the opportunity for the reader to explore the implications of applying the method in further detail and satisfying themselves as to whether the technique is appropriate for the matter under consideration.

The list of methods is drawn from a survey of the scientific literature and unpublished technical reports, written by professional members of the community. They have been drawn from textbooks, scientific journals and professional reports on the methodology of environmental assessment. The master list provides a survey of the assessment methods it is possible for cities in Europe, North America and Canada to use and case-study reviews of how they have been applied to evaluate the sustainability of urban development. In certain cases they represent assessment methods the partner and extranet members of BEQUEST have been engaged in developing, or have a detailed knowledge of (see Deakin et al., 2001, 2002a,b, 2004; Deakin and Lombardi, 2005a,b for further details of the survey).

Part 5 takes the evaluation of SUD full circle. This is achieved by reviewing how well the environmental assessment methods evaluate the ecological integrity of urban development and equity of the resulting resource distribution. Furthermore, this is done by evaluating whether or not this distribution of resources is based on decisions taken by the public participating in matters concerning the future of urban development and sustainability of cities.

The Assessment Methodology

The assessment methodology Volume 2 adopts is based upon an understanding that the growing international and increasingly global nature of the relationship which exists between the environment and economy of civil society is uncertain, resulting in as yet incalculable degrees of risk and this in turn means standard ‘tried and tested’ methods of assessment are of limited help in evaluating SUD. Volume 2 argues the limitations of such standard measures can only be overcome by adopting a ‘co-evolutionary approach’ to environmental assessment and turning attention towards methods able to evaluate the ecology of resource consumption.

Volume 2 argues the value of this position lies in the opportunity that assessments of this kind provide to develop methods which apply the so-called ‘hard’ certainties of bio-physical science to the more uncertain, risky social relations of SUD – the relations that are ‘softer’ and which are by nature more difficult to predict. As shall be seen, this much-needed methodological development is achieved by emphasizing the co-evolutionary nature of the bio-physical and social in a framework of analysis with protocols that are cross-cutting and integrative and which in turn provide the assessments cities require for evaluating the sustainability of urban development. What is significant about this methodological development is the capacity it has not only to transcend the limitations of existing valuation techniques, but transform them into particular forms of assessment capable of evaluating SUD.

Taking this form, Volume 2 provides a detailed account of the environmental assessment methods key to this transformation. This provides the opportunity to highlight those assessment methods that are key to this transformation and building the environmental capacity which is needed to not only qualify the ecological integrity of urban development, but also provide the techniques of analysis required to evaluate whether this brings about an equitable distribution of resources. Evaluate whether the techniques of analysis bring about a distribution of resources which is equitable in the sense that it allows the public to participate in decisions affecting the economic and social future of cities. As such, Volume 2 provides the opportunity to provide a detailed account of those assessment methods that are key in Building the Environmental capacity which is needed to QUalify the ecological integrity of urban development and Evaluate the equity of the public’s participation in decisions affecting the future economic and social SusTainability of cities.

A Post-Brundtland Directory of Environmental Assessment

Volume 2 on SUD presents what is referred to as a ‘post-Brundtland directory of environmental assessment methods’. The objective of the said directory is fourfold. First, to direct decision-makers towards the master list of environmental assessment methods that are currently in existence and which it is possible for stakeholders to use in evaluating the sustainability of urban development. Secondly, to provide a standard description for each of the environmental assessment methods under consideration. Thirdly, to illustrate the classes of assessment the methods represent. Fourthly, to classify the assessment methods based on the complexity of the evaluations they advance. Here the stakeholders are represented as urban planners, property developers, designers (architects and engineers), construction contractors, operators and users. As each group offers expertise at various stages of the urban development process, it is recognized that each decision-maker requires to be directed towards a method of assessment which provides a detailed description of what each evaluation contributes to the sustainability of cities.

This is what the standard description of the assessment methods does. In providing a standard description of the assessment methods, it allows stakeholders to source the information of interest to them and to direct decision-makers towards the nature of the evaluation the techniques of analysis offers. Given the number of stakeholders in the urban development process and interests they represent, it is important to provide such a description because it is not always clear which sector of the community the assessment method is directed towards and what stage of the urban development process it relates to. The standard description aims to clarify these matters and avoid any such confusion over the use of the assessment methods. Ultimately, of course, the effects of the decisions taken on SUD are assumed to be fed back to the community so they can inform further research into the sustainability of cities.

The reason for this stakeholder approach is fourfold. First, it focuses attention on the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• 1. Introduction: Mark Deakin, Gordon Mitchell, Peter Nijkamp and Ron Vreeker
• Part 1. Environmental Assessment
• Part 2. Systems Thinking-based Approaches
• Part 3. Methods for Environmental Valuations
• Part 4 Methods for Environmental, Economic and Social Assessments
• Part 5. Evaluating the Sustainability of Urban Development
• Index