Contribuições da avaliação ambiental estratégica para o planejamento espacial de bacias hidrográficas no Brasil

Abstract

Despite Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is taking place in Brazil, this process is still voluntary and lacks directives that lead it according to the needs and peculiarities of the country. In this study, we aimed I. to discuss opportunities and challenges to implementing SEA to Brazilian land-use planning process through a wide literature review, and II. to propose a method based on multi-criteria decision aid (MCDA) to support the diagnosis stage of the Regional Strategic Environmental Assessment (R-SEA) of a watershed, more precisely, the Doce river basin. SEA can help to hold the land-use planning providing an estimation about the future use of a territory and bringing into account the adjustments that would be necessary to guarantee that sustainable development goals are reached. Despite some Brazilian SEA voluntary experiences, the capacity of the performed SEA in Brazil is considered weak, mostly because of lack of legal obligation, lack of dialogue with other public policies, lack of continuity in political management, and the need for more transparency and better governance. However, Brazil has potential for SEA application in many sectors and that is necessary to adapt this instrument to better attend its demands. We also believe that premises of Regional SEA are the most suitable category of environmental assessment for the Brazilian land-use planning, supported by the proposed MCDA method.