Reliability of Strategic Environmental Assessment for Territorial Management: General Criticisms and a Proposed Approach in the Presence of Relevant Accident Risk Facilities

This electronic document is a “live” template. The various components of your paper [title, text, heads, etc.] are already defined on the style sheet, as illustrated by the portions given in this document The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a procedure with a wide application, that has a very important role in sustainable territorial development. The aim of this work is to carry out some evaluations after the initial period of application, also based on the data of a particularly complex territory, Lombardy Region (Northern Italy), which is characterized by a very high concentration of population, industrial activities and economic interests. The evaluations reveal some critical aspects that negatively influence the correct application of the SEA in Italy, with consequences on the territorial governance. One of these critical aspects is the need to define specific standards and parameters for carrying out a SEA on the different environmental themes. One of these is the assessment of the anthropic risk, which may initially be approximately defined as the industrial risk during territorial planning and programming. On this matter, we suggest adopting a methodological approach that is found in specific guidelines for anyone that produces the Environmental Report in support of the SEA, and for councils that have to produce a Technical Examination Paper of the Relevant Accident Risk, in order to assess the industrial risk, also when there are companies with a relevant accident risk.