• Energy Research

If Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) to be effective and fulfil in the spirit of its governing EU Directive 2001/42/EC, cooperative and inclusive attitudes are essential. Cooperation should involve institutions, planning authorities and agencies which are involved in environmental assessment procedures. Inclusion implies favouring and catalysing local communities’ participation, that is participation of the public, in the planning/ assessment process.This paper discusses crucial aspects of SEA through a comparison of two case studies: the SEA of the Torbay Local Transport Plan 2006-2011 (LTPT) published by Torbay Council, and the Masterplan of the Port of the City of Cagliari, 2010 (MPPC) published by the Autorità Portuale di Cagliari in Sardinia, Italy, to provide evidence and lessons of good practice for both the UK and Italy. These include the assessment of:i. the endogeneity of the SEA process’ with respect to the planning process;ii. the sustainability and participation approaches;iii. the way available alternative planning options are compared;iv. the definition of the monitoring process.

The seeming dichotomy between the protection of biodiversity and the supply of ecosystem services (ESs) represents an outstanding field of research that requires a structured and detailed analysis. The paper analyzes and discusses the role of ESs within spatial planning and strategic environmental assessment (SEA) procedures through the content analysis methodology and a logical framework (LF) implemented into the SEA of municipal masterplans (MMPs). We discuss the role of ESs as factors that improve the effectiveness of SEA-based processes related to management plans (MPs) of sites that belong to the Sardinian Natura 2000 Network with reference to their positive impacts on environmental quality. The empirical outcomes put in evidence the inconsistencies between MMPs and MPs in terms of sustainability-oriented objectives and potential losses of the ESs productive output due to measures adopted by the MPs in order to protect habitats and species. The scant attention paid to ESs in the operational context of MMPs, MPs and SEA reports, particularly as regards their regulative framework, entails that the issue of the protection of ESs has to be carefully taken into account within the process of the definition and establishment of MPs through an SEA report that integrates the MPs and MMPs LFs.

In 2008, the Council of the European Union adopted the “Protocol on Integrated Coastal Zone Management” (ICZM Protocol), then ratified by Decision No. 2010/631/EU. The ICZM Protocol defines integrated coastal zone management as a dynamic and flexible process that accounts for the relations between coastal ecosystems and landscape as well as the activities and the uses that characterize coastal areas. Integrated management of coastal zones is still a critical process in terms of translating theory into practice. In this theoretical framework, strategic environmental assessment (SEA) helps to improve decision-making processes related to coastal spatial planning by integrating development goals and sustainability criteria. This study proposes a methodological approach concerning ICZM-based decision-making processes at the local level. The methodology is implemented in relation to three case studies concerning three towns located in southwest Sardinia. The results show a general consistency between the analyzed plans in terms of objectives and themes. Three specific issues are particularly relevant in terms of integration of economic and social objectives and sustainability goals, that is, relations between beach services and coastal ecosystems, protection of coastal ecosystems, and accessibility to the coastal zones.

Ecosystem services and green infrastructure do not appear to inform spatial policies and plans. National governments hardly identify their ecological networks or make an effort to integrate them into their spatial policies and plans. Under this perspective, an important scientific and technical issue is to focus on preserving corridors for enabling species mobility and on achieving connectivity between natural protected areas. In this respect, this Special Issue takes a step forward insofar as it aims at proposing a theoretical and methodological discussion on the definition and implementation of ecological networks that, besides guaranteeing wildlife movements, also provide a wide range of ecosystem services. The social and economic profile of this question is also relevant since in the long run, savings in public spending (e.g., due to the reduced need for grey infrastructures aiming at contrasting soil erosion or at managing flood risk), savings in private spending (e.g., on water treatment costs) and the potential creation of green jobs are foreseeable. Moreover, indirect and less easily quantifiable social and health benefits (e.g., due to improved natural pollution abatement) are likely to occur as well.

We propose a methodological approach to identify a multifunctional green infrastructure (GI) on the basis of four values (conservation value, natural value, recreation value and anthropic heritage) that represent many functions (biodiversity conservation, supply of ecosystem services, recreation, identity building) performed by the landscape. By taking the Italian region of Sardinia as a case study, we argue that the methodology can support the making of landscape plans as understood in the European Landscape Convention. Moreover, we propose and implement a methodology to identify ecological corridors (ECs) connecting Natura 2000 sites (N2Ss), based on the prioritization of functional land patches related to their suitability to ecosystem services delivery, paying particular attention to biodiversity maintenance and enhancement, and taking Sardinia as spatial regional context. The methodology consists of two steps: (i) identifying the most suitable patches to be included in ECs on the basis of their connectivity, that is, on their negative attitude towards contributing to landscape fragmentation; (ii) assessing, through a discrete-choice-model, the suitability of these ECs to be included in a regional GI, starting from the territorial taxonomy based on biodiversity characteristics related to N2Ss, habitat suitability, and recreational and landscape potentials.

A wide body of research in recent years has studied either green infrastructures as providers of multiple ecosystem services, especially at the urban level, or ecological corridors and the issue of connectivity between landscape patches in the face of growing fragmentation. However, not many studies have analyzed how the two concepts can be combined to ground evidence-based policy and planning recommendations. In this study, a methodological approach for such a combination is proposed: after mapping a regional green infrastructure building upon the assessment of multiple ecosystem services and a network of ecological corridors through the resistance to movement of species, the two spatial layouts are combined so as to analyze correlations between the potential provision of ecosystem services and the resistance to movement. The methodology is applied in the case of the island of Sardinia, whose self-containment makes it possible to discard potential effects from surrounding areas, hence facilitating the implementation of the model. The outcomes of the regression model point out three ecosystem services as the most important factors that should be targeted by appropriate spatial policies if connectivity is to be increased: regulation of micro and local climate, forestry productivity, and cultural identity and heritage values.

According to the European Commission, green infrastructure and spatial connectivity concerning the provision of ecosystem services are strictly related to the conceptual category of ecological networks. In particular, regional and urban planning processes should adequately manage, improve and monitor the effectiveness of green infrastructures as ecological networks which provide ecosystem services and the spatial connectivity of such systems. Building on a methodological approach defined in previous studies, this article aims at identifying ecological corridors through a least-cost path model with reference to the spatial layout of a set of protected areas. Moreover, such a methodological approach is implemented in the context of the Sardinian region to map ecological corridors, which form, together with protected areas, a network representing the spatial framework of regional green infrastructure. Finally, the study discusses the relation between ecological corridors and the spatial taxonomy of the landscape components featured by environmental relevance, identified by the Regional Landscape Plan, through multiple linear regression analysis, in order to assess if, and to what extent, the present regional spatial zoning code can be used as a basis to implement regulations aimed at protecting ecological corridors. This methodological approach is relevant to defining planning policies and measures to strengthen the operational capacity and effectiveness of regional networks of protected areas through the protection and the improvement of the spatial framework of ecological corridors.