Horizontal environmental policy (Matera)

Editor's note 6Jun14: Sources D342-3

The assessment of environmental impacts is defined as the analysis of the environmental impacts of proposed projects, plans and programmes relating to land use, transport, industry, energy, waste and agriculture aiming to prevent and reduce any impact or disturbance and is conducted according to two EU directives Directive 2011/92 (Environmental Impact Assessment- EIA) and Directive 2001/42 (Strategic Environmental Assessment- SEA).

Main policy instruments related to horizontal policies

Source: Authors

Horizontal policy regulation

At the national level, the EIA Directive has been firstly adopted through the Law no. 349 1986 and then modified and amended up to the Legislative Decree (L.D.) no. 152/2006. The SEA Directive has been adopted through the Legislative Decree (L.D.) no. 152/2006 and further modified by the L.D. no. 4/2008 and L.D. no. 128/2010. EIA and the SEA procedures represent a key instrument of environmental integration, covering a wide range of projects and ensuring their environmental sustainability. At the national and regional levels, the main objective of the EIA and SEA procedures is “to provide a high level of protection for the environment and to contribute to the integration of environmental considerations into the preparation and adoption of plans and programmes with a view to promoting sustainable development, by ensuring that, in accordance with this Directive, an environmental assessment is carried out of certain plans and programmes which are likely to have significant effects on the environment”.

Objects of EIA are public and private projects which are likely to have significant effects on the environment. It is mandatory that projects listed in Annex I of the EIA Directive (85/337/EEC) are subject to the EIA procedure, while is it not mandatory for projects listed in the Annex II; whether or not it will be carried out is based on an assessment of the national authorities through a screening procedure determining the effects of said projects on the basis of thresholds/criteria or a case by case examination. The SEA objects are defined only amongst the public projects and are mandatory for plans/programmes related to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy, industry, transport, waste/ water management, telecommunications, tourism, town and country planning or land use and which set the framework for future development consent of projects listed in the EIA Directive. The SEA is also mandatory for plans and programmes that have been determined as requiring an assessment under the Habitats Directive.

Main actors involved in forest policy

The main actors in the horizontal policy for environmental assessment at a national level are represented by the Ministry of Environment and Protection of Land and Sea through the Directorate for Environmental Assessments, which provides the technical administrative documentation on procedures for SEA and EIA. At the regional level, the regional administration is the main policy actor in the implementation of the EIA and SEA. At the moment, the Basilicata Regional Administration has produced a regional law that regulates only the EIA procedure, represented by the Regional Law no. 47/1998; for the SEA procedures, the national regulations are applied, based on the L.D. no. 152/2006 and its further modifications (L.D. no. 4/2008 and L.D. no. 128/2010). The Office of Environmental Compatibility and Activities of the Department of Environment of the Basilicata Region is responsible for the application of the relevant EU, national and regional laws. Moreover, the Office of Environmental Compatibility and Activities is responsible for the regional annual report of the EIA and SEA. At the municipality level, the local administrations are not involved as policy actors in the EIA and SEA implementation procedures, but are subject to the application of both procedures for all public plans and proposed programmes.

Implementation, impacts, effectiveness of horizontal environmental policy

A key role in the implementation of the EIA and SEA procedures is played by the ARPAB, which is the Basilicata Regional Agency for the Protection of Environment. The ARPAB is designed to be responsible for the supervision of the completion of the approved projects, ensuring their environmental compatibility. This activity is reported to the Office of Environmental Compatibility of the Basilicata Region in an ongoing manner.

The main instrument in the implementation of the EIA and SEA procedures is the environmental report in order to define:

• environmental sustainability of the project, plan or programme;
• project description and legal and administrative framework;
• scoping and screening;
• description of the existing environment, the contents of monitoring indicators and their calculation methods;
• analysis of alternatives and criteria for the selection of the proposed alternative;
• environmental issues of the project;
• mitigation measures;
• environmental management and training and environmental monitoring plan, including the quantification and allocation of adequate resources to perform the activities of monitoring, the definition of methods for giving regular reports on the monitoring mechanisms of the realignment plan / programme in the event of unforeseen adverse effects.

The horizontal policies for the environment assessment represented by the EIA and SEA procedures have been largely implemented in the Basilicata Region in the last ten years. Due to the mandatory nature of the EIA and SEA and thanks to the institution of the Basilicata Region Agency for Environment Protection (ARPAB), 254 projects have been submitted to the ARPAB during the period from 2003 to 2009 for the evaluation of environmental compatibility; among these projects, 58 have applied for EIA and been approved by the Basilicata Region Administration. The remaining 196 projects which were submitted for screening activity and the Basilicata Region Administration did not require an Environmental Assessment.

The horizontal policy for the environmental assessment was highly effective in its application due to the mandatory structure of the procedure. Yet, it is hard to define direct effects of the policy on the development of the Matera SES since it serves more as a control tool aiming to ensure project sustainability from the environmental point of view, thereby maintaining the environmental efficiency. From this point of view, it has been highly effective in environment conservation efforts and thus in the conservation of the environmental functions of the Matera SES.

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