Environmental / ecological issues

 Up until the 1980s and early 1990s, the main environmental issues related to major polluters such as industrial plants, power stations or animal breeding facilities. Individual and dispersed sources of pollution however now receive more attention. This implies that the attention is shifting from production to consumption. Furthermore, fragmented and dispersed sources of pollution require quite different types of political action compared to large scale industrial plants. Effective and successful policy responses require policy-makers to pay more attention to general drivers and also sectoral developments that influence behind many environmental pressures. There is therefore a shift towards more integrated approaches of environmental issues, in which spatial planning has an important role to play.

 Current trends in European settlement patterns, industrial production and increased mobility lead to increasing pressures on the environment, as energy consumption, traffic and waste generation continue to increase. The European environment outlook report (2005) highlights how the variety of matters of environmental concerns, such as climate change, air quality, water stress (when the demand exceeds the amount of available water) and loss of natural capital need to be assessed separately but addressed in an integrated way. The report further emphasises the need to explore these issues in relation to socio-economic developments.

 The integration of the environmental dimension in sector policies and in regional policy is a central concern of current EU strategy for sustainable development. The EU Sustainable Development Strategy (2006) was initially adopted in Gothenburg in 2001. The strategy purports to be closely related to the Lisbon strategy, based on claims that the ability to tackle environmental and social protection is a prerequisite for economic growth. The strategy has had an impact on sector and regional based policies, because it emphasises the need for better regulation and full integration of the environmental dimension in all policies. Finally, the Sustainable Development Strategy has helped promoting the idea that economic, social and environmental policies mutually strengthen each other.

 The environmental dimension is implemented through two kinds of impact assessments that identify and assess the expected effects of plans, actions or strategies. Such impact assessments mainly act as an aid to political decision-making. Environmental assessment is a process to guarantee that the environmental consequences and questions are considered before a decision is finalised (European Union 2007). The first type of assessment is called Environmental Impact Assessment and is carried out in the case of individual projects such as motorways, airports, housing developments etc. The second Strategic Environmental Assessment is used in relation to plans, programmes and policies.

 Environmental concerns are increasingly considered in the wider context of sustainability. Ecological sustainability in this perspective needs to be considered in combination with social and economic sustainability within each community or region. Managing this complex and rapidly evolving system of concerns requires new approaches to planning. The right to appeal environmental planning decisions is important in this respect, together with public involvement and participation in administrative procedures leading to environmental planning decisions. These different types of interventions of the civil society in policy-making processed play help ensuring that a variety of interests can be taken into account and considered in balance. The way these public interventions are regulated determines the quality of the compromises made between economic, social and environmental imperatives. (e.g. Danish Ministry of the Environment 2001).

 Scale is an important element to consider in this regulation. Planners intervene within given administrative territories, but are now expected to contribute to issues with an impact at the global scale (e.g. global warming), in relation to nationally defined policy objectives (e.g. wildlife preservation) or concerning national or international user groups (e.g. natural parks, leisure areas). While the local level is still the one that gives municipal planners their democratic legitimacy, the civil society representatives who may have a legitimate say in the issues that are dealt with often do not come from the local communities. This can lead to conflicts, as local communities may consider that these external interventions in local planning processes violate their right to self-governance.

 The appropriate way to treat different scales in ecological and human systems has therefore developed into a critical issue in the search for proper solutions to present problems. This makes it all the more relevant to deal with environmental issues through spatial planning, which focuses precisely on the interactions and coordination between different territorial scales.

• Council of the European Union (2006). Review of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy (EU SDS) - Renewed Strategy http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/06/st10/st10117.en06.pdf

• Danish Ministry of the Environment, Denmark. (2001). Spatial planning as an instrument for promoting sustainable development in the Nordic countries. Action programme for 2001–2004 http://www.lpa.dk/Topmenuen/Publikationer/Andre_sprog/2002/planlaegning_som_instrument_i_Norden_uk.pdf

• European Environment Agency (2005). European environment outlook report. EEA report, No 4/2005. http://reports.eea.europa.eu/eea_report_2005_4/en/outlook_web.pdf

• European Union (2007). Environmental assessment. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eia/home.htm

• Hilding-Rydevik, Tuija & Lähteenmäki-Smith, Kaisa & Storbjörk, Sofie (2005). Implementing Sustainable Development in the Regional Development Context – A Nordic Overview. Nordregio Report 2005:5