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ABU DHABI, 10th April, 2023 (WAM) — The Abu Dhabi Environment Authority, EAD, has launched a strategic environmental assessment (SEA) planning plan in line with the UAE’s Year of Sustainable Development. The SEA plan will help assess environmental impacts and guide the investigation of alternatives and potential mitigation and monitoring efforts related to strategic projects, programs and development plans.
The plan will promote sustainable development and a healthy environment for future generations, while supporting the national strategic goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
The SEA program complies with UAE Federal Law No. 24 of 1999, which empowers EADs to request an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for a project or facility. The SEA program is a form of impact assessment study, and the SEA decree signed by the Board of Directors in 2022 gives EAD the power to apply for SEA not only for projects and facilities, but also for master plans, development plans and strategy implementation.
Faisal Al Hammadi, Executive Director of EAD’s Environmental Quality Sector, said the SEA program ensures that environmental considerations are taken into account during the initial design phase of projects, programs and programmes. The program focuses on researching alternatives to find the best alternatives that maintain a balance between environmental protection and economic and social development. It also helps to offset negative environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The SEA plan allows for the study of alternative project design and implementation methods, guiding the development of appropriate mitigation measures and environmental management plans to prevent or reduce any associated environmental impacts. SEA applies to all departments responsible for developing master plans, strategic projects and development plans. It applies primarily to government and quasi-government entities, but may also apply to other major strategic projects.
As part of the EAD management process, we have developed an environmental management framework to guide our clients’ steps forward. The framework defines project objectives, identifies roles and responsibilities, ensures training programs are in place, and sets requirements for environmental monitoring and auditing. After the assessment is complete, the client needs to start implementing the environmental management framework to ensure the successful implementation of the SEA recommendations.
SEA reporting has several benefits including preventing, reducing and offsetting negative environmental impacts such as air pollution, land pollution and climate change. The report helps avoid impacts on critical and environmentally sensitive habitats, declared or proposed protected areas, through advanced and proactive land use planning to ensure these ecologically significant areas are protected in accordance with EAD’s habitat classification and conservation guidelines . In addition, the report provides early warning of potential cumulative impacts and offers a wide range of alternatives to minimize the cumulative environmental impact of a project, program or programme. It also ensures extensive consultation and engagement with relevant government authorities at an early and effective stage. Finally, SEA ensures that significant environmental impacts of the implementation are monitored, enabling early identification of unforeseen adverse impacts, allowing appropriate remedial measures to be taken if necessary.
During the development of the SEA program, extensive benchmarking studies were carried out involving many countries and organizations in the region and globally, including the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Canada, South Africa, Australia and Lebanon.
SEA is a structured and proactive multi-phase process that includes a screening phase to determine the need for SEA, a scoping phase to define the scope of work for the SEA report, a stakeholder engagement phase, and an assessment and preparation phase. This includes impact assessments, studies of alternatives, and the setting of mitigation measures and EAD reviews of SEAs. This is followed by a decision-making phase, which leads to the acceptance or rejection of a proposed project, plan or program based on the results of the SEA, and finally a monitoring phase of the SEA’s recommendations and their effectiveness in protecting the environment.
A detailed training program has been developed to ensure that the regulated community understands the requirements of the EAD. The training will take place in a series of workshops and the training materials and recorded training videos are available online. In addition, EAD will provide training to Environmental Consulting Offices (ECOs) and revise their ECO registration requirements to ensure consultancies can successfully conduct SEA reporting.
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