Biodiversity and ecosystem services in strategic environmental assessment: An evaluation of six Australian cases

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Highlights

  • Criteria are derived from best practice principles to evaluate strategic assessments in Australia.

  • No net loss goals are poorly specified limiting effectiveness.

  • Evidence to demonstrate adequate application of the mitigation hierarchy is limited.

  • Ecosystem services integration is also limited.

  • Monitoring, auditing and evaluation activities lack detail.

Abstract

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) aims to provide a sound theoretical basis on which to plan for biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES). With the multi-purpose and increasing use of SEA worldwide, it is timely to evaluate the effectiveness of SEA practice in integrating biodiversity and ES considerations. Here, we derive criteria from the International Best Practice Principles on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Impact Assessment to evaluate six Australian SEAs conducted for urban development plans. We use qualitative and quantitative content analysis to examine the endorsed SEA reports. We identify and analyse text references related to the evaluation criteria and use word counting of keywords to supplement and cross-check the validity of our findings. Four significant results emerge from our analysis. First, while goals to achieve no net loss (NNL) or net gain outcomes for biodiversity are mentioned in all case studies, their poor specification may limit their effectiveness. Second, there is limited integration of ES considerations into the SEA reports, limiting the potential advantages that such an approach could provide. Third, offsetting is the most documented type of mitigation measure, potentially signalling a lack of evidence in implementing early steps of the mitigation hierarchy, including avoidance. This could be explained by the low level of integration of biodiversity and ES considerations from the early stages in the planning process, where there is more flexibility to apply such steps. Fourth, biodiversity management systems and follow-up activities lack detailed information to judge whether they will be useful to demonstrate NNL outcomes. Based on these findings, we present recommendations for enhancing the integration of biodiversity and ES considerations in SEAs. Our approach provides a general framework that can be applied to evaluate SEAs elsewhere in the world from a biodiversity and ES conservation perspective.

Introduction

Strategic environmental assessment (SEA) has been defined as a structured process that seeks to integrate environmental and sustainability objectives in strategic or higher levels of decision making, such as policies, plans and programs (Thérivel, 2010). It is considered an essential approach to ensure that development across a landscape is planned and implemented in such a way that negative effects on biodiversity are minimised (Treweek et al., 2005). SEA potentially allows for increased transparency in the way environmental considerations are taken into account in decision-making (Fundingsland-Tetlow and Hanusch, 2012). It can also help counteract some of the limitations of project-level environmental impact assessment (EIA) by ensuring environmental impacts and alternatives are considered early in the decision-making process, and by addressing cumulative and large-scale effects (Fundingsland-Tetlow and Hanusch, 2012).

The benefits of integrating biodiversity into SEA processes have been highlighted in several publications. For example, Slootweg et al. (2006) consider SEA can be useful to anticipate cumulative effects on biodiversity at a strategic level and to define levels of acceptable change. Rajvanshi (2015, p. 32) notes that SEA can help ensure that “policies, plans and programs are compatible with existing strategies and mechanisms for biodiversity conservation”. Furthermore, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, 1992) recognises impact assessment processes as important opportunities to integrate biodiversity considerations into decision-making and have developed voluntary guidelines for biodiversity-inclusive impact assessment focussing on EIA and SEA (Slootweg et al., 2006).

Studies also suggest that using an ecosystem services approach in SEA can further enhance its outcomes (Baker et al., 2013; Geneletti, 2013; Kumar et al., 2013; Söderman and Saarela, 2010). Ecosystem services (ES) are the benefits that people obtain from ecosystems, and their provision is underpinned by biodiversity (MA, 2005). Mace et al. (2012) explain that biodiversity can serve multiple roles in the provision of ES by acting as a regulator of ecosystem processes (e.g. more diverse biological communities increase resilience to pests and environmental change), as a service in itself (e.g. enhancing genetic variability for goods such as novel pharmaceuticals) and as a good (e.g. appreciation of biodiversity components such as wildlife and scenic places). ES are commonly referred to in the following categories: (i) provisioning services, which describe the material outputs from ecosystems, such as food, water and other resources; (ii) regulating services, or services that ecosystems provide by acting as regulators, such as regulating the quality of air and soil; (iii) supporting services, which underpin almost all other services, such as habitat for species and the maintenance of genetic diversity; and (iv) cultural services, which include the non-material benefits people obtain from contact with ecosystems, such as aesthetic, spiritual and psychological benefits (TEEB, 2010). Partidário and Gomes (2013, p. 45) consider that integrating ES in SEA can help “materialize strategic opportunities and risks, and increase the tangibility of SEA”. Slootweg (2016) argues that using ES in SEA can inform spatial planning on development opportunities and constraints and can enable negotiations on how benefits associated with ES are shared and how responsibilities are managed.

While SEA provides a sound theoretical basis on which to plan for biodiversity and ES, it is critical to investigate how such considerations are, or could be, practically integrated. This is important to study as the contributions that ecosystems and their biodiversity make to human wellbeing are often overlooked, underestimated or omitted from the trade-offs and decisions made within impact assessment processes (Brownlie and Treweek, 2018). At the same time, SEA is being adopted by an increasing number of countries, states, and international agencies (Fundingsland-Tetlow and Hanusch, 2012; Sadler and Dusík, 2016), but knowledge of how it plays out in practice is limited (Cashmore and Partidário, 2016). With this multi-purpose and increasing use of SEA worldwide, it is timely to evaluate its effectiveness in achieving the fundamental purposes, including integrating biodiversity and ES considerations into decision-making.

Previous work has examined how biodiversity has been addressed in SEA. For example, Kolhoff and Slootweg (2005) analysed SEAs of spatial plans in the Netherlands and found that biodiversity impacts are studied at the ecosystem level rather than at the species level. Contrastingly, Söderman and Saarela (2010) found that SEAs of land use plans in Finland focus strongly on narrow biodiversity elements in order to avoid legal challenges for approved plans. More recently, Whitehead et al. (2017) applied spatial prioritization tools to analyse the potential cumulative impacts on biodiversity of a large-scale development plan in Australia for which a SEA was conducted. Other work has studied the integration of ES in SEA. For instance, Baker et al. (2013) examined SEA case studies in Portugal, South Africa and Glasgow where ES approaches were implemented in the assessment process. They found that ES can help improve the framing of SEAs, but that ES approaches require a context specific consideration. Partidário and Gomes (2013) proposed a methodology for linking ES in SEA to increase its strategic value and applied it to a Portuguese SEA case study. Honrado et al. (2013) found that explicit assessments of ES were scarce in EIA and SEA case studies in Portugal and recommended a framework to systematically consider ES in such processes.

While such research has helped advance knowledge regarding the treatment of biodiversity and ES in SEA, we are not aware of any studies that systematically evaluate the integration of biodiversity and ES considerations in SEA across multiple case studies, as we undertake here. In the following sections, we describe how such evaluation was undertaken by deriving criteria from best practice principles and applying qualitative and quantitative content analysis approaches to examine endorsed SEA reports from six Australian case studies. We present results and discuss our findings in the context of improving the consideration of biodiversity and ES in SEA in Australia, as well as the effectiveness and limitations of our evaluation approach and its potential use to evaluate SEAs elsewhere.

Section snippets

Methods

The extent to which biodiversity and ES are integrated into the assessment or ‘pre-implementation’ stage of SEA was evaluated using six Australian case studies. The Australian SEA practice is interesting in the international context due to the strong focus it places on the conservation of biodiversity. Under the provisions established in Australia's national environmental law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999 (EPBC Act, Commonwealth), a SEA (or ‘strategic

Qualitative results

Fig. 4 presents a breakdown of the scores of the six case studies for each of the 26 evaluation criteria as well as their overall scores. While the overall performance score (obtained by summing the scores for each criterion) of the case studies was similar, the highest score was achieved by the Melbourne case study, followed by the West Belconnen case study, with the Sydney case study receiving the lowest score. The results for the criteria across the case studies can be classified into four

Discussion

The findings of this study demonstrate variable performance of the six SEA case studies in integrating biodiversity and ES considerations. While some criteria were addressed systematically across all assessments, other criteria were only partially addressed or were completely absent from the analysis. The word count analysis helped cross-check the validity of the findings and obtain a more detailed understanding of trends within and across the case studies on criteria addressing biodiversity

Conclusions

The results of this study indicate that there is scope for improvement regarding the integration of biodiversity and ES in Australian SEAs and that opportunities to obtain more substantial benefits from SEA are being missed. Greater efforts are needed to ensure SEA is conducted and implemented in a way that enables the generation of genuine long-term biodiversity gains and maximises ES. Our recommendations for enhancing the integration of biodiversity and ES considerations in SEAs include

Declaration of Competing Interest

None.

Acknowledgements

This research was conducted on the unceded lands of the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nations. This research was conducted with support from the Australian Government's National Environmental Science Program through the Threatened Species Recovery Hub and Clean Air and Urban Landscapes Hub, and the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions. MG is supported by scholarships from RMIT University and the

Marco Gutierrez is a PhD candidate with the ICON Science research group at RMIT University, Australia. His research focuses on strategic environmental assessment and understanding the outcomes, opportunities and risks of such an approach in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem services conservation. He is interested in environmental decision-making and regulation and has worked as an environmental regulator and consultant in Mexico.

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  • Cited by (0)

    Marco Gutierrez is a PhD candidate with the ICON Science research group at RMIT University, Australia. His research focuses on strategic environmental assessment and understanding the outcomes, opportunities and risks of such an approach in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem services conservation. He is interested in environmental decision-making and regulation and has worked as an environmental regulator and consultant in Mexico.

    Professor Sarah A. Bekessy leads the ICON Science research group at RMIT University, Australia, which uses interdisciplinary approaches to solve complex biodiversity conservation problems. She is particularly interested in understanding the role of human behaviour in conservation and in designing cities to encourage ‘every day nature’ experiences. She co-developed the Biodiversity Sensitive Urban Design protocol that has now been used by numerous developers, governments and non-government organisations to design innovative urban biodiversity strategies.

    Dr. Ascelin Gordon is a senior research fellow with the ICON Science research group at RMIT University, Australia. His primary research focuses on conservation planning, biodiversity offsetting, conservation on private land and understanding the impacts of environmental policies on biodiversity. His interests also include dealing with uncertainties in conservation, setting priorities for conservation investment, and population modelling.

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