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ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT DOI: 10.1007/s00267-002-2932-z Strategic Environmental Assessment of the Effects of European Union’s Regional Development Plans in Don˜ana National Park (Spain) JUAN JOSE´ ON˜ATE* Departamento de Ecologia Universidad Auto´noma de Madrid E-28049 Madrid, Spain DAVID PEREIRA Departamento de Proyectos y Planificacio´n Rural ETSIA-Universidad Polite´cnica de Madrid E-28040 Madrid, Spain FRANCISCO SUA´REZ Departamento de Ecologia Universidad Auto´noma de Madrid E-28049 Madrid, Spain ABSTRACT / The European Union’s Structural Funds are implemented by means of Regional Development Plans (RDP), whose regionally scoped environmental assessment is required. We highlight the deficiencies faced by this approach when subregional areas with high conservation natural values are involved and illustrate it with the case of the RDP of Andalusia region on Don˜ana National Park area (Spain). Commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund, a Strategic Environmental

Regional Development Plans (RDP) are the basic programming documents for implementing the Structural Funds in the European Union (EU), which are intended to promote the economic and social cohesion among Member States “reducing the disparities between development levels in the different Regions and the delays in less favored ones” (Art. 130 of the Amsterdam Treaty). Structural Funds support development in various sectors (agriculture, transport, tourism, energy, urbanization, etc.) and have played a key role in the economic development of Objective 1 Regions in the European Union (those whose average per capita GDP is less than 75% of the EU average, European Commission 2001a). Particularly, Spanish Objective 1 Regions KEY WORDS: Environmental assessment; Land-use planning; Structural funds; European Union; Spain *Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; email: [email protected]

Environmental Management Vol. 31, No. 5, pp. 642– 655

Assessment (SEA) of the Andalusian RDP was carried out focusing on Don˜ana and its area of influence. This is a complex space where some of the most environmentally valuable features in the continent coexist with a surrounding intense and multi-sector economic activity, threatening its conservation. In the absence of an established sustainability framework in the Region, a “trickle-down” SEA approach evidenced the need to produce a set of environmental, economic and social guidelines for sustainable management of land, against which the RDP objectives were tested for coherence. An “incremental” SEA approach was also tested, which involved the identification of 79 measures and actions stemming from the RDP provisions and other concurrent planning documents reviewed and the qualitative assessment of their individual and cumulative potential impacts on Don˜ana environments. In the light of the results, a set of complementary mitigating measures was proposed for inclusion in tiered stages of the planning process. Measures to avoid, reduce, remedy and monitor the major types of impact were proposed, including provisions for public participation. SEA emerges as an instrument for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to carry out independent assessment of public development initiatives.

have received 34,443 million Euro in the period 1994 – 1999, and have been granted 48,058 million Euro for the period 2000 –2006. Specific regulatory requirements concerning the environmental appraisal of Structural Fund applications were already introduced in 1993 (Regulation EEC n° 2081/93), although the absence of a contrasted methodological approach for such an assessment limited the attention given to environmental considerations (Bradley 1999). Subsequently, Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) has been recommended to strengthen environmental issues in the programming of Structural Funds (European Commission 1998). The approach is based on a comprehensive system of qualitative questions regarding key elements of the Plan, which should be tackled with by the body in charge of the Plan. Regulation (CE) n° 1260/1999 established the general dispositions for Structural Fund implementation in the period 2000 –2006. The process is arranged in two tiers of programming and environmental appraisal. ©

2003 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.

SEA of EU Structural Funds in Don˜ ana National Park

The first is at the RDP level, the document appraising the baseline (economic, social and environmental) conditions of the Region and proposing an overall development approach and objectives. The second is at the Operational Program (OP) level, which identifies the set of detailed development actions and concretizes the financial contribution of the Structural Funds. In order to improve the coordination among sectors around a coherent development strategy, the planning procedure considers all sectors and the entire Region, a wide scope in which analysis of alternatives is theoretically more feasible. Similarly, the environmental diagnosis and impact appraisal is undertaken on a Regional working scale, regardless of peculiarities and hazards to the specific areas within them. Don ˜ ana National Park and its surrounding area is a complex space where some of the most environmentally valuable features in the continent are present. The National Park is a Ramsar wetland (UNESCO 1971), a Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage site, as well as an EU Special Protection Area for Birds and a Site of Community Importance (SCI) in accordance with Directives 79/409/EEC and 92/43/EEC. In the surrounding area also some zones are under Regional protection figures, such as the Don ˜ ana Regional Park, and have also been proposed as SCI. These great conservation values coexist with an intense and multi-sector economic activity that threatens its conservation, mainly due to the environmental effects of drainage of the marshes, huge irrigation transformation projects, pyrites and derivatives mines, navigation projects in the Guadalquivir River, and an intense tourist industry. In response, the European Commission approved a Sustainable Development Plan for the Don ˜ ana area during 1993–2000, which was co-financed by two consecutive and specific OPs. In this period, the Plan injected more than 372 million Euros into the so-called “socio-economic area of influence” (31 municipalities, nearly 300,000 inhabitants and 11,160 km2). Most of the Plan’s management was organized with participation of the major governmental, social and economic agents. The implemented management system and participation schemes have helped to ameliorate some of the most striking social opposition to conservation, initiating a growing environmental awareness at the social level. Environmental resources have become a key development factor, setting the path towards sustainability (Fundacio´ n Don ˜ ana 21 1999). Nevertheless, the Plan has also continued to promote the economic growth of the area by means of important infrastructure related to tourist development and intensive greenhouse-based agriculture.

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Moreover, the area has come to be influenced by the growing urban dynamics of Seville (more than 1,000,000 inhabitants, less than 15 km east of Don ˜ ana) and Huelva (near 300,000 inhabitants, 20 km to the west), and by the improvement of existing and newly planned transport corridors linking the two. As a result, the Sustainable Development Plan has not solved all the problems of Don ˜ ana and has generated among the social agents new development expectations for the area. The new 2000 –2006 Structural Funds period has begun with a new RDP for the entire Region of Andalusia, and lacks any specific program for Don ˜ ana. It is therefore important to analyze the extent to which the RDP objectives for Andalusia are suitable for covering the challenges still threatening sustainable development in this valuable area. Furthermore, the international conservation value of Don ˜ ana, together with the extraordinarily economic dynamism of its surroundings, requires a more detailed analysis of the foreseeable development actions, not covered by the regionalscale assessment. This paper presents the methodology for, and the results of, the informal SEA of the Andalusia RDP on the Don ˜ ana National Park and its area of influence. We aim to analyze, in the spatial perspective of Don ˜ ana, the potential effects of both the RDP objectives and the foreseeable actions driven by the ongoing sectorial planning at the local level. Our starting point states that the ongoing sectorial driving forces at the local level (agriculture, transport, tourism, energy, etc.), could be more determinant to the final RDP outcome over the area than what the RDP objectives might suggest. If this assumption proves to be true, the environmental assessment at the RDP level will only have a limited effectiveness in setting the context for tiered programming and environmental appraisals. This approach, which in some respects resembles the “Regional Environmental Assessments” proposed by the World Bank (World Bank 1996), could complement the RDP-level assessment in the case of particular areas with recognized conservation values or environmental problems and high socio-economic dynamism. If carried out before the development actions take their definitive shape, such an appraisal would ideally permit the optimization of the lower tiers of planning and appraisal from an environmental perspective. The study was undertaken externally to the relevant government bodies and was commissioned by WWF/ Spain in response to the well-known commitment by this international non-governmental organization (NGO) to nature conservation.

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Figure 1. Study area covering Don ˜ ana National and Regional Parks and area of influence. Dotted lines indicate river network.

Material and Methods Study Area Don ˜ ana National Park covers 50,720 ha in the Andalusia Autonomous Region in southern Spain (Figure 1). It is one of the largest and most important remaining wetlands in Europe. Located on the floodplain of the lower Guadalquivir River, it consists of a vast marshland complex separated from the Atlantic Ocean by an extensive system of both active and stabilized dunes. The present 27,000 ha are the last remnant of the wetlands that once occupied more than 150,000 ha. The marshes are subject to seasonal variations in water level and salinity that reflect rainfall and river flow patterns and dynamic of groundwater levels, resulting in a complex system determined by the hydrological functioning of the entire watersheds. The area is a haven for several birds on world-scale endangered lists such as the marbled teal (Marmorenetta angustirostris), Spanish imperial eagle (Aquila adalberti), white headed duck (Oxyura leucocephala) along with several species with European endangered status. The most critically endangered feline in the world, the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus), has one of its largest populations in Don ˜ ana. For the purposes of our assessment the study area covers all the “socioeconomic area of influence” (Fig-

ure 1). The area covers the entire catchments of the tributary rivers in order to expand the boundaries of Don ˜ ana’s planning ambit well beyond the physical border of the National Park and immediate surroundings. The need for such enlargement was evidenced by the toxic waste spill from the Aznalco´ llar mines (20 km north of Don ˜ ana), that spread 3 million m3 of sludge and 4 million m3 of acid waters into the Guadiamar River, the main tributary to the marshes (European Commission 2000a). The municipalities of Seville and Huelva have also been included for several aspects. Strategic Environmental Assessment Our SEA of the Andalusia Development Plan, regional in spatial scale and cross-sector in scope, covers nearly 13% of the Regional area. The main steps in the analysis (Figure 2) were: (1) diagnosis of the present situation in the area on the basis of historical changes; (2) elaboration of a set of guidelines (environmental, economic and social ones) for sustainable land management; (3) appraisal of the RDP objectives; (4) inventory of foreseeable development actions; (5) impact assessment; and (6) proposal of mitigation and complementary measures. The first step involved the analysis of recent environmental and socioeconomic trends in the area, includ-

SEA of EU Structural Funds in Don˜ ana National Park

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Figure 2. Flowchart showing followed methodological approach, with main steps in bold.

ing irrigation and tourism development in the 60’s and 70’s, official protection and intense social conflict in the 80’s, and sustainable development efforts in the 90’s (Confederacio´ n Hidrogra´ fica del Guadalquivir 1998, Fundacio´ n Don ˜ ana 21 1999). The RDP and several official planning documents relating to the study area (Junta de Andalucia 1997, 1998a, 1998b, 1999a, 1999b, Ministerio de Hacienda 2000) were also diagnosed, and all spatial information was arranged in cartography (scale, 1:700,000). In a second step, three groups of basic guidelines for sustainable land management (in the sense of Dale and others 2000) were produced: (1) environmental, related to the conservation and management of natural resources; (2) economic, referred to the economic activities and its territorial distribution; and (3) social, related to the social and cultural settings. In doing so,

the sustainability guidelines proposed by the European Commission (1998) were adapted to the local peculiarities. Since administrative significance (according to Canter and Canty 1993) was considered an important criterion in adapting the guidelines, different regional planning initiatives were also reviewed (Junta de Andalucia 1997, 1998a, 1998b, 1999a, 1999b, Ministerio de Hacienda 2000). In the third step, the content of the RDP was analyzed in terms of its 7 general and 20 specific objectives for Andalusia (Table 1), which should also be applicable in the Don ˜ ana area. The list of objectives was then contrasted for coherence with the produced guidelines in a square matrix. The objectives vs. guidelines interactions were first classified in five categories of compatibility: (1) fully compatible: noncontroversial interaction or even highly compatible, in which case the

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Table 1.

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General and specific objectives of the RDP for Andalusia

Objective A. Increment of tangible and nontangible actives in enterprises To promote the increase of tangible resources in enterprises To encourage the development of non-tangible resources in order to access international markets with innovative products B. Promotion of production systems in each economic sector To promote industrial activities with clear business opportunities To promote modernization and efficiency of the agro-food complex To reinforce restructuring of the fisheries sector supporting the transformation and commercialization of fish products To improve the profit from the tourism sector potential maintaining and expanding its value-adding capacity To encourage the development of dynamic efficiencies through greater productive articulation C. Enhancement of innovation ability and technological assimilation To strengthen the Regional innovation system To eliminate bottle-necks in profiting the potential from information and communication technologies D. Development of human resources To improve performance and designations in the labor market To increase the qualification level of human resources To improve the supporting structures for educational activities in each level E. Promotion of local and urban development To support the consolidation of local production systems To reduce the shortfalls in township systems F. Reduction of deficits in infrastructure and equipment To improve efficiency and interconnectivity of transport system To overcome the shortfalls of the energy system To increase the infrastructure endowment to improve social cohesion G. Reduction of pressure on the biophysical environment To achieve an equilibrium in the hydrological system To encourage the sustainable use of protected natural spaces To reduce hazards to natural resources

relationship is classified as synergic; (2) generally compatible, while noncontroversial, the interaction could require complementary monitoring or management initiatives; (3) partially compatible, no compatibility unless zoning measures are adopted or subordination to fully compatible principles is enforced; (4) noncompatible, a category not used since there was no case; and (5) indifferent, when the relationship is not applicable in the area. Then, depending on compatibility with the different guidelines, each objective was classified under one of the following four definitions: (1) priority objectives, fully congruent with the integration guidelines and at the same time permitting the socioeconomic development of the area; (2) coherent objectives, part of the above strategy although, (i) its implementation is not a priority; (ii) are potentially controversial to some extent; or (iii) must be subordinated to compliance with priority objectives; (3) conflict objectives, serious incompatibilities with coherent objectives and consequently must be (i) restricted to specific areas; or (ii) subordinated to compliance with the above-mentioned objectives; and (4) not applicable, discarded objectives due to total confrontation with the sustainability approach. In the study, none were found to be applicable to this category.

The fourth step dealt with the inventory of foreseeable development actions. To be meaningful in considering the potential of impacts, the assessment needs a list of actions containing the greatest possible specific and localized detail. Since the RDP did not provide this detail, the task involved the review of up to 18 official planning documents (regarding land-use, environment, tourism, transport and water infrastructures, economy, and nature conservation), some of them in their latest draft version, in order to complete the picture of development provisions for the area. The potential interaction between the RDP outcome and other social and economic driving forces was also considered, and other projects identified or demanded by social agents in the area were included due to the social significance of their possible effects (Canter and Canty 1993). Four categories of actions, according to their potential impact and the nature of the economic agents involved in their implementation, were considered: (1) environmental: small-scale civil engineering projects (except certain hydrological projects) as well as public subsidies, linked to environmental objectives and located in rural areas; (2) infrastructure, large-scale civil engineering projects promoted by public administrations in rural areas, which in many cases affect protected natural areas; (3) economic sectors, a heteroge-

SEA of EU Structural Funds in Don˜ ana National Park

Table 2.

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Impact types and description

Impact Type On valuable, natural areas and resources

Impact Description Direct effects to valued areas

Human frequency

Barrier effect

Effects on key species

Large spatial scale impacts

Changes in water management Accessibility to humans

Land-use, change

Resources, consumption Low-intensity impacts

Environmental risk

Human dimension of environmental problems

Compliance with regulations and planning Changes in sociocultural issues

Public participation

Don ˜ ana National and Natural Parks, three protected landscapes and the proposed Sites of Community Importance (to be included in the Natura 2000 Network under Directive 92/43/EEC) in the area, were considered. Both nuisance to fauna during sensitive periods (breeding, resting) and damage to vegetation on roadsides and recreational areas (trampling, breaking branches, flower collection, etc), were included. Recognizing the role of corridors and connectivity in wildlife conservation (e.g., Bennett 1999), fragmentation impacts as well as loss of habitat suitability of existing linkages were considered. Six vertebrate flag-species (The`rivel and Thomson 1997) were selected as indicators: crested coot (Fulica cristata), marbled teal (Marmorenetta angustirostris), white-headed duck (Oxyura leucocephala), Spanish imperial eagle (Aquila adalberti), chameleon (Chamaleo chamaleo) and Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus). Quantity and quality of the resource affected by both projects promoting its more sustainable use and those increasing demands were considered. Related by feed-back and synergy to other impacts such as fragmentation, land-use change and changes in water resources management. Clear driver of secondary impacts, it still acts directly through irrigation expansion, increased urban development, tourist resorts and new transport infrastructure. Compatible uses with the status of the area were also considered. Rational use of water, energy and materials as well as waste reduction, re-utilization and recycling were here considered. Characterized by the cumulative nature of the effects, including air and seawater pollution, diffuse agricultural pollution, waste and debris disposal and noise. “Uncertain situations involving the possibility of an undesired outcome” (Merkhofer 1999), were considered in the analysis of the foreseen projects and actions. It was evaluated whether the foreseen measures and actions encourage or penalize planned, concerted and disciplined interventions. The complex yet vital interrelationships between human beings and their biophysical surroundings (Freudenburg 1999) were considered regarding how the proposed measures and actions promote the local population’s respect for the Don ˜ ana environment. Interest was focused on whether the foreseen measures and actions promote public participation in the development model, and permit the consumers of products and services to encourage behavior that is compatible with the conservation of Don ˜ ana.

neous set of actions (subsidies and incentives), generally located in urban areas and indirectly affecting the environment through changes to social, economic or cultural conditions; and (4) population and urban areas, actions located in urban areas and aimed at changing social and cultural issues, trying to improve the inhabitants’ quality of life. Moreover, the spatial scope of the different development actions was mapped when possible. The fifth step dealt with the identification and as-

sessment of potential impacts, which in the sake of the study being comprehensive were classified into 3 groups and 13 types (Table 2). For the assessment, a matrix actions vs. impact types was built and each existing intersection or foreseen impact was qualitatively evaluated according to its magnitude: (1) very important, (2) important, (3) significant, (4) compatible, (5) moderate, (6) very moderate) and sign (⫹ ⫺ depending on the final action’s design), and then described in detail. Moreover, the cumulative effect of different ac-

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Table 3.

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Guidelines for sustainable management of land in the Don˜ ana National Park and area of influence

Environmental guidelines Protection of natural resources and the diversity of habitats and species Reversion of regressive or degenerating trends in natural resource dynamics Increase the connectivity of valuable areas by creating a network of protected spaces Definition of a concerted water management model for the Don ˜ ana area Prevention of over-exploitation of aquifers and improvement of water quality Prevention of situations which might lead to hazardous outcomes Economic and territorial guidelines Prevention of financial penalties for development initiatives giving rise to positive externalities Attainment of market support for products and services linked to sustainable management Promotion of development models backing reasonable and responsible use of natural resources Reduction of territorial disparities in the area Continuation of the adaptation process by production sectors to the sustainability model Encouragement of a business culture that throws itself behind production quality and process innovation Social and cultural guidelines Promotion of awareness of Don ˜ ana’s resources and development potential relating to them Preservation of cultural resources linked to traditional management techniques (marshlands) and uses Promotion of traditional culture and values in the area Adequate social integration of in-migrant labor force needed for new activities

tions was identified, considering aggregation processes both by its spatial overlapping and by added effect through ecological vectors of spatially independent actions (e.g., water flows; Rumrill and Canter 1997, Mac Donald 2000). Lastly, a set of mitigating and complementary measures was proposed under the following categories: (1) prevention, expressing the need for an alternative approach to eliminate an impact; (2) reduction, introducing design criteria for the actions to lessen the severity of the impacts; (3) remedy, involving some improvement or compensation; and (4) follow-up, suggestions to intensify the appraisal of particular issues during the following planning stages and to monitor crucial aspects determining the effectiveness of particular actions or their effective environmental integration.

Results Guidelines for Sustainable Land Management In order to facilitate guidelines identification, a collection of maps of the area was produced, displaying the natural values (protected areas, wetlands, hydrology network, key species distribution) and main driving forces and recent trends (population and population pressure, urban development, agriculture and irrigation, tourist pressure, transport infrastructure and average daily road traffic intensity). A total of 16 guidelines were identified for the area, 6 related to the environment, 6 to the economic sector, and 4 to the social and cultural settings (Table 3). Among the environmental ones, the first three are similar to those previously proposed by Dale and others

(2000), the remaining reflecting the relevance for the area of water management and risk prevention. The economic and social guidelines reflect the importance attached to these issues in the RDP, and in order to consider also the economic and social dimensions of sustainability. Appraisal of RDP Objectives Apart from those indifferent, the majority of the interactions in the matrix objectives vs. guidelines were classified as generally compatible (41.5%), followed by partially compatible (34.1%), most of them (82.1%) if zoning measures are taken, and fully compatible interactions (24.4%). The frequency of each type of interaction differed among the three groups of guidelines. Generally compatible interactions were of the same order (39.8%, 40.0% and 49.0%, for environmental, economic and social, respectively). However, partially compatible interactions were higher for the environmental guidelines (46.8%) than for the social (30.8%) and economic (21.5%) ones, while fully compatible interactions were higher for the economic guidelines (38.5%) than for social (17.0%) and environmental (13.3%) ones. After qualitatively adding up the individual compatibilities of each objective in regard to the different guidelines, the majority were categorized as coherent (50.0%), the percentage of priority objectives (35.0%) being also high. Nevertheless, a significant number of the RDP objectives were categorized as conflictive (15.0%). Specific RDP objectives under “A. Increment of tangible and nontangible actives in enterprises” and under

SEA of EU Structural Funds in Don˜ ana National Park

“E. Promotion of local and urban development” (see Table 1 for objectives’ description) were all found to be coherent, while those associated to with “C. Enhancement of innovation ability and technological assimilation” resulted in priority. The categorization of specific objectives under the remaining general ones was not internally homogeneous. In the case of “B. Promotion of production systems in each economic sector,” two of them were conflictive (B1 and B2), while the other three were categorized as coherent (B3, B4 and B5). Regarding “D. Development of human resources,” two specific objectives resulted in priority (D2 and D3) and one coherent (D1). Each of the specific objectives under “F. Reduction of deficits in infrastructure and equipment” was differently categorized (F1 conflictive, F2 coherent, and F3 priority). Finally, those related to “G. Reduction of pressure on the biophysical environment” resulted in priority (G1 and G3) and coherent (G2). Inventory of Foreseeable Development Actions A total of 79 development actions were identified and analyzed. The majority were related to the economic sector (41.8%), including business development (3 actions), industry and energy (4), agriculture and livestock (11), fisheries (3), and tourism (12). Numerically less important were those actions related to infrastructures (34.2%), which include road network (6 actions), rail network (1), ports (5), transport and multimodality (3), irrigation (4), water-supply systems (1), sewage treatment (3), artificial aquifer recharge (1), river bank defense and channeling (1), and waste treatment (2). In comparison, the number of actions under the remaining categories was significantly lower: environmental actions (17.7%) including restoration and management (8), protected and public domain areas (4), risk prevention (2), and actions on population and urban areas (6.3%), including five actions. RDP Impact Assessment A total of 423 impacts were identified, 44.7% of which were regarded as high magnitude and 55.3% lesser magnitude (Figure 3). The majority of the high magnitude impacts (112; almost 60.0%) were found to be positive for the Don ˜ ana area, although more than two-thirds (61; 32.2%) were found to be negative and up to 16 (8.5%) could have either positive or negative effects depending on the final design of the concrete action. Particularly positive in their impacts were actions linked to compliance with regulations and planning, changes in socio-cultural issues and public participation, totaling 51 (45.5%) of the foreseen positive

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impacts. Several positive impacts were also found among actions regarding resources consumption (12; 10.7%) and changes in water management (10; 9.0%). On the other hand, the highest numbers of negative impacts were found among effects on key species (10; 16.4%), valued areas and land-use change (7 each; 11.5%) and actions causing changes to accessibility to humans and human frequency (6 each; 9.8%). Among the 234 less significant impacts, 125 (53.4%) were considered positive, 82 (35.0%) negative and 27 (11.6%) were dependant on the final design of the concrete action. The most numerous positive impacts were produced by actions targeting at changes in sociocultural issues (23; 18.4%) followed by those aimed at changes in water management (20; 16.0%) and resources consumption (15; 12.0%). The negative types of impact were mainly produced by actions changing human frequency and accessibility to humans on the one hand, or actions producing low-intensity but extended impacts on the other (25; 30.5% and 13; 15.8%, respectively). Mitigation and Complementary Measures No complementary objectives for the RDP were proposed, but a general recommendation was made regarding the need to evaluate the approach of each intervention in light of the sustainability guidelines produced (Table 3). From this point of view, the actions relating to the economic sectors (agriculture and tourism) and infrastructure (transport) were considered to be particularly sensitive. In this sense, it was stressed that present emphasis on infrastructure development in the RDP should be replaced by attention to the mid- and long-term economic problems of the key sectors in the area, which ultimately rely almost entirely on the structurally limited water resources. It was considered that 9 out of the 79 proposed actions should be avoided, at least in their present design: 3 new highway infrastructure, the promotion of secondary road network usage, the high-speed train link between Seville and Huelva, a water transfer channel from the adjacent Guadiana watershed, new irrigation expansions and the introduction and/or improvement of nautical facilities for tourism in the Guadalquivir river. Proposals for the reduction of impacts were suggested for the remaining 70 actions, involving design criteria for subsequent tiered planning stages and final projects. In the case of subsidies and financial actions, the proposed criteria referred to the allocation of resources among applicants on the basis of compliance with the sustainability guidelines. In some cases, remedial measures were proposed to compensate for nega-

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Figure 3. Identified potential impacts of the Andalusia Regional Development Plan on the study area and its appraisal on the basis of sign and magnitude (n: number of actions causing each type of impact).

SEA of EU Structural Funds in Don˜ ana National Park

tive impacts of a lesser magnitude and improve the effect of those positive ones. Moreover, monitoring schemes were proposed for the implementation and/or further planning stages of the appraised actions, including the need to adapt their design to the environmental monitoring of its future performance. A set of 25 key indicators was proposed to monitor the evolution of impacts, both positive and negative, and to communicate the results to the authorities, residents and the general public. Overall, the need for a management system of the RDP implementation in Don ˜ ana was stressed to the competent bodies and to WWF. The system should achieve optimal coordination between agencies and actions and should guarantee fruitful participation by the social agents involved.

Discussion The “Trickle Down” Approach to SEA Compared to EIA, one of the apparent complexities of SEA is the lack of specific details in actions to be assessed. Often, these are not defined in detail in the plans or programs subjected to appraisal, in our case the RDP. The proposed guidelines (European Commission 1998) follow the environmental-principle-led SEA, which requires a set of consistent, clear and reasonably detailed sustainability guidelines reviewed at national, regional and local levels; these guidelines can be used as sustainability criteria against which the development proposals can be appraised. But in the case of Andalusia, this “trickle down” approach to SEA (The`rivel and others 1992) is difficult in the absence of an accepted Regional strategy for sustainable development. Like many other countries in the world, even at the National level, the design of such a strategy has only recently been initiated (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente 2001). In the absence of a sustainability framework, this conventional SEA approach faces serious difficulties in integrating the environmental considerations into the developmental decision-making process. In fact, a recent evaluation commissioned by the European Commission recognizes that the RDP appraisals are not rigorously carried out in Spain, and that for Andalusia “the only recommendations were ‘meeting the current environmental legislation’ and ‘developing mitigation measures’. . .‘giving an overall impression of lack of willingness to undertake more critical and objective environmental assessment” (European Commission 2001b, p. 120). Thus, in order to be really effective, the SEA mechanism must include the production of a set of environmental guidelines for sustainable land manage-

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ment, which must go beyond general terms. Moreover, economic and social guidelines should be produced as well, taking into account the other two dimensions of sustainability (European Commission 2001c), and thus satisfying the aim to incorporate SEA into planning on a par with economic and social factors. This should be the way to avoid the undesirable situation where SEA is just added to the planning process (Sadler and Verheem 1996). In our case, given the complexity and significance of the Don ˜ ana environments and problems, the sustainability guidelines must be territorially particularized. The compatibility appraisal of the RDP objectives with the produced sustainability guidelines brought contradictory results to light. On the one hand, seven priority labels were assigned to different objectives. On the other hand, the RDP financial investment also promotes an increment of the economic activity on the basis of the most unsustainable sectors, industry, intensive agriculture, and transport infrastructure. Importantly, a number of objectives were found to be compatible with the guidelines only if careful scrutiny of the spatial location of their realizations is accounted for and thus were labeled as coherent. The same happened with other objectives, coherent because of the need to be subordinated to compliance with the priority ones. Going further than the above-mentioned lack of a sustainability framework, there are two main reasons for these contradictions. First, they reflect an inadequate consideration of the environmental integration concept. Full consideration of environmental issues, horizontally cutting across all sectors, is not attempted in the appraised RDP. Instead of including environmental considerations in the sectorial objectives, the RDP proposes an independent set of environmental objectives, which is insufficient. Secondly, they are a reflection of the absence of any hierarchy among RDP objectives and the lack of a monitoring scheme of the RDP outcomes. In the above-mentioned intermediate cases, possible incompatibilities are dependent not on the objectives’ statement but on the unknown priorities of the decision makers in future selection and location of the ultimate projects. In the absence of an objectives’ hierarchy and an indicator system to monitor the RDP performance, the compatibility appraisal of the objectives will always render dubious results. The “Incremental” Approach to SEA The review of historical and current development trends in the area evidenced its extraordinary economic dynamism, in spite of which it is still included in an Objective 1 Region and thus will continue to benefit from Structural Funds. Both circumstances allow us to

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reasonably predict that the final outcome of the RDP on the Don ˜ ana area will include a large number of projects requiring Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Hence, the performed SEA of the Andalusian RDP has tried to compliment the constraints of EIA in the Structural Funds framework, working out the socalled “incremental” SEA approach (Glasson and others 1999). This approach requires a list of development actions in the greatest possible detail. In our case, the inventory of foreseen actions to be financed by the Structural Funds in the Don ˜ ana area was difficult since the degree of detail of a RDP is not fine-grained enough in this respect due to its Regional scope. The consulted planning documents at regional and subregional scale, drafted or passed in recent years, proved useful as a source of more detailed development initiatives, especially public investment projects scheduled in sectorial and land-use planning. In addition, indirect actions such as subsidies and incentives were also identified and included. Their outcome may obviously depend on the willingness of the targeted economic agents to participate, but they were reasonably easy to predict on the basis of promoters’ expectations and previous experience. We assume that this analytic methodology is subject to uncertainties in terms of the identification and performance of actions and their environmental appraisal, since some actions could be rejected, differed or redefined during later tiers of the planning process. However, the double analysis established seems appropriate for managing this uncertainty. Firstly, for the actions best identified, the appraisal facilitated the evaluation of the sign and magnitude of potential impacts and therefore it was possible to suggest modifications with corrective measures to the heaviest cases of impact. Secondly, for the less well-identified actions whose impact appraisal depends on its final design, a second cycle of the analysis led to identification of the critical aspects to be considered in lower-level planning tiers. Thus, considerations regarding the future design of actions as well as critical issues for later monitoring could be appraised, leading to relevant recommendations. It was also possible to define the space or time limits for indirect actions (those executed via subsidies or incentives) or to identify the features potentially generating positive or negative environmental and social impacts. Advantages of the Combined Approach SEA methodologies must be flexible in order to be adapted to each particular situation where it is applied (On ˜ ate and others 2002). In our case, the combined

approach rendered several advantages. Firstly, it facilitated the production of a particularized set of sustainability guidelines for the reference area, going beyond the unavoidable generalization of those referring to the entire Region. This particularization is fully justified given the significant size of the study area (nearly 13% of the Region), together with its international value in conservation terms and the powerful threat of the local economic dynamics. The availability of such a set of particularized guidelines is obviously a precondition for the realistic appraisal of RDP objectives in the case of the Don ˜ ana environments. The realistic identification and assessment of impacts also requires such a framework. Secondly, SEA has defined the most reasonable, comprehensive scenario of RDP outcome on the basis of coherent performance of public administration. Although still subject to uncertainty, the scenario is based on the considerable planning effort made in recent years in the area. While some of the most controversial actions may have little chance of being implemented, their social significance still makes their environmental assessment necessary, in an exercise that may well help to reduce social conflict. Even in the most uncertain cases, critical or conflicting issues identified at this stage can be useful as a powerful decision-making tool in subsequent tiers of planning for the production of better, environmentally sound designs of individual projects and for orienting their conventional EIA. This includes spatial location directives, technological choices, dimensional aspects and corrective measures. Thirdly, under this type of SEA, cumulative impacts, led by aggregation processes and environmental vectors, can be fully characterized. Reasonably foreseeable incremental impacts from past, present and future actions (CEQ 1997) can be better identified considering the most comprehensive scenario in a specific territorial reference area. Spatial relationships between impacts are especially crucial in the case of Don ˜ ana, where sustainable use of environmental resources, especially water (marsh dynamics) and space (habitat connectivity), is a critical aspect. In this sense, the territorial analysis revealed limits to development and it was possible to define state and pressure indicators to monitor the aggregated effects. The cumulative analysis of impacts also illustrated the need to improve coordination among different government bodies that impinge on the same territory, feeding back the system objectives during the planning process, which is a clear requirement of any coherent strategy (European Commission 1999). Fourthly, this type of SEA enables uncertainty regarding actions to also be tackled positively within the

SEA of EU Structural Funds in Don˜ ana National Park

proposed management system, which can embrace all the potential issues of concern, both environmental and social. The coherence of the indicator system needed to monitor the RDP performance in subsequent tiers of planning is improved when all the potential actions and their effects are considered. The indicator system could then serve to select projects in accordance with local development preferences, priorities and hazards. A more precise prediction of indicator changes should be performed during individual project EIA, so at this stage, critical issues are identified for each set of foreseen actions, searching for an important tiered perspective (Mac Donald 2000). Fifthly, the comprehensive approach is also important regarding public participation in the planning process. The consideration of social significance as an assessment criterion is particularly important in cases where, as in Don ˜ ana, there is a convergence of critical environmental values and powerful economic dynamism, and social contestation is predictable (e.g., Maestre 2001). Although frameworks and tools have been proposed for public involvement (e.g., European Commission 2000b), theoretical and practical difficulties still persist (Iyer-Raniga and Treolar 2000). Since no provisions for public participation were considered in the RDP, our recommendations have stressed the need to nurture bottom-up participatory processes, which soon will became compulsory under the forthcoming European Directive on the issue (European Commission 2000c). In this sense, a clear indicator system for monitoring the outcome of tiered planning and communicate results was recommended to facilitate negotiation and prevent social conflicts during the plan implementation. Finally, the combined approach forced the search for the most comprehensive set of ongoing planning documentation, putting at the disposal of NGOs the most actual and complete list of foreseeable actions and their potential effects. Moreover, the study demonstrated that independent, nongovernmental assessment could be a powerful instrument for NGOs to scrutinize the sustainability of public development initiatives.

Conclusions The European Commission’s recommendations for the environmental assessment of Regional Development Plans seems unsuitable for cases in which (1) there is no widely accepted and politically supported sustainability framework at the Regional level, with clearly stated guidelines for managing land; and (2) inside the targeted Region, there are sub-regional ambits with many environmental or socioeconomic pecu-

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liarities, values and dynamics. This is the case of the RDP for Andalusia and its potential impact on the Don ˜ ana National Park and area of influence, for which a combined SEA methodology has been proposed and implemented with satisfactory results. The combined “trickle-down” and “incremental” SEA approach adopted facilitated both the appraisal of compatibility between RDP objectives and sustainability guidelines for the area, and the assessment of the potential impacts caused by the foreseeable development actions. Three aspects synthesize the deficiencies encountered in the appraised RDP: (1) a lack of specifics in the objectives with respect to such an important area as Don ˜ ana; (2) an inadequate treatment of the territorial dimension, reflecting priorities and particularly sensible and valuable natural resources; and (3) absence of a consistent and reliable indicator system to monitor its performance and environmental effects. Several mitigation measures have been proposed to ameliorate the most important effects of RDP implementation, but in the absence of a specific Operational Program for the Don ˜ ana area these deficiencies may determine a coordination deficit in the implementation of the RDP provisions. In this sense, we recommend the introduction of a management system and coordination instruments to minimize the possible incongruence between plans and programs, considering the necessary specificity of the actions to be applied. In such a dynamic space, it is also fundamental that the wide range of affected social actors participates in the RDP implementation process. SEA has been seen as an instrument that provides the conditions to promote sustainability, especially when the integration of regional and national environmental objectives has been completed. Unfortunately, many Objective 1 Regions (especially in southern European countries), have still not attained political consensus for such sustainable approach to development, and insist on calling for financial resources to provide the baseline for “conventional” economic growth. The present EU requirements for Structural Fund implementation have undoubtedly acted as an important driving force for the integration of the environment in strategic decision-making, and at the moment they are the only formal mechanism under which SEAs on RDPs are undertaken in Spain. The RDP for Andalusia has partly reflected these new approaches, and incorporates highly desirable objectives and actions. It may thus provide clear environmental benefits and promote social change towards the conservation of natural resources. However, the RDP will no doubt be an important source of financial investment in the Don ˜ ana area,

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and its effects will also logically increment economic activity. If this increment is not adequately planned, appraised and controlled, such environmental benefits may be compromised.

Acknowledgments The Spanish section of WWF provided financial support for this work. Thanks are also due to Dr. A. A. Jackson, M. Laituri and a third anonymous reviewer, whose insightful comments on a previous version greatly improved the manuscript.

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