Studies On Guidelines Of Strategic Environmental Assessment For Economic And Social Plan Of Regional Development

Plan environmental assessment is seen as entry point of SEA in China. But there are many kinds of plan. The ability is not enough to research all kinds of plan environmental assessment at present. Economic and social plan for regional development is one of plans which are at the highest level in plan system of China, its content covers all aspects of society, economy and environment, and its function is an important way in which the government can regulate the running of society-economy-environment system. Compared with other plans, economic and social plan for regional development has more direct, extensive and far-reaching impact on society, economy and environment. Therefore, strategic environmental assessment for economic and social plan for regional development can be seen as breakthrough of SEA, and human and material resources should be first focused on the its study.From enhancing the implementation of strategic environmental assessment, strengthening national environmental protection efforts, achieving high integration between environmental protection and economic development, standardizing strategic environmental assessment for economic and social plan for regional development, and the existing guidelines can not meet the practice, it proved the necessary to establish guidelines.So far, there are no special guidelines for strategic environmental assessment for economic and social plan for regional development at home and abroad. So the establishment of the guidelines was regarded as research content in this paper. Referring to strategic environmental assessment statement and the present "Technical guidelines for plan environmental impact assessment (on trial)", it built "Guidelines for strategic environmental assessment for economic and social plan for regional development" (hereinafter it is referred to as Guidelines). The guidelines included scope of application, assessment purpose, study object of assessment, assessment content, assessment methods, assessment procedures, assessment data, assessment principles, assessment platform, the final results of assessment, and measures to ensure assessment quality.Three key issues in the guidelines were researched as follow:(1) Demonstrating the need and adequacy of assessment contentAccording to the operation rules of regional society-economy-environment open complex giant system, the operation of regional society-economy-environment systems is divided into several key links. Through the assessment for these key links, the operation of regional society-economy-environment systems can be grasped. So assessment content was determined as follows:assessment for functional integrity of society-economy-environment systems, assessment for stability, assessment for coordination, assessment for the relation between environmental pressure and carrying capacity, assessment for the reasonableness of industry structure and industrial layout, assessment for supply and demand of resource, assessment for supply and demand of environmental capacity, and assessment for the relation with other strategies. Strategic environmental assessment for economic and social plan for regional development is focused on "strategy" or "intent" of the plan, so the adequacy of the assessment content in the guidelines was demonstrated.(2) Establishing assessment proceduresThe course of formulating economic and social plan for regional development is divided into three stages:formulating plan objective, formulating plan programs, and formulating plan measures. According to phased requirements of formulating plan, policy-oriented assessment procedures was designed, which includes three stages: assessing plan objective, assessing plan programs, and assessing plan measures.(3) The research of assessment methodsThe method for calculating the absolute value of environmental carrying capacity and pressure was improved. The method for calculating the relative value of environmental carrying capacity and pressure was established. The fuzzy set for calculating the perfect of regional society-economy-environment systems function was established. System dynamics model for calculating supply and demand of water was established. The complete decomposition model for assessing energy issues was established. And the applicability of these methods was demonstrated with following example.The established guidelines were used to assessment "the 11th five-year master plan outline of economic and social development in Wuhan (draft)". And it found that Wuhan's perfect of function, stability and coordination level of society-economy-environment system will continuously increase in the 11th five-year period. But the gap between Wuhan City's own environmental carrying capacity and environmental stress will further increase, and large carrying capacity will need to be input from the outside world, mainly imported from other areas of Hubei province. Industrial structure and industrial distribution need to be optimized. In 11th five-year or longer future period, Caidian district, Hannan district, and Qingshan district should be focus on developing, and Hanyang district, Qiaokou district, Jiangan district and Wuchang district should be protected. Water and energy can meet demand, but the use of water resources is not unsustainable, the target of decreasing 20% of unit GDP energy consumption is also difficult to achieve, the use of land is reasonable. The input of environmental protection can not guarantee the emissions of major pollutants will be in environmental capacity. If Wuhan wants to ensure that the emissions of major pollutants will not exceed the environmental capacity, the growth rate of the cost for controlling pollution must exceed GDP's, and the cost for controlling pollution of 2010 will increase 1.861 billion yuan. The plan outline's guiding ideology and development targets meet Hubei Province and the national "the 11th five-year plan".Compared with other examples, this assessment paid more attention to the operation rules of the society-economy-environment system. Especially, this assessment calculated Wuhan society-economy-environment system's functional integrity, stability and coordination, calculated the absolute and relative value of environmental carrying capacity and pressure, quantitatively divided functional areas, calculated environmental cost which assure the emissions will not exceed the environmental capacity. Therefore, this assessment can quantitatively demonstrate the accessibility of social and economic goals in the plan outline, and can give quantitative conclusions about the industrial distribution, industrial Structure and others.Through comparison with the current "technical guidelines for plan environmental impact assessment (on trial)"and others, the reasonableness of constructed guidelines is confirmed.