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TERRITORIAL IMPACT
ASSESSMENT (TIA)
Appraisal
tool for assessing potential impact of strategies, plans, policies and projects
against spatial development planning and management objectives
using sustainability criteria.
Effect of using the TIA:
Introducing
rigour and systematisation into planning and management
·
Introduces
systematic appraisal of potential impacts into the scenario planning phase
·
Integrates
economic, social and environmental issues
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Balanced
analysis of both positive and negative effects of Plans/Policies
Methodology:
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Clear
and unequivocal statement of spatial policy objectives underlying strategies,
plans and policies
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Systematic
appraisal of planned outcomes i.e. within strategies and plans and their
constituent policies, against holistic sustainability indicators and targets
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Spatial
(or territorial) impacts as the fundamental focus
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Thresholds
of spatial development need agreement before TIA can be used effectively
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Forecasting
and data techniques need reconciliation if cross-sectoral
analyses are to be compatible and meaningful
Added value:
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Specifically
orientated to spatial analysis - a missing appraisal tool
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Pre-plan
evaluation of potential impacts and outcomes - a systematic scenario tool at
the strategy evaluation and choice stage
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Cross-sectoral and integrating in its construction
·
Allows
the positive impacts (i.e. the declared objectives of management) to be
articulated and demonstrated, as well as highlighting the negative effects or
at least the cross-sectoral tensions (the latter
being the usual outcome of such assessment techniques)
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Minimising,
or making transparent the potential spatial conflicts or tensions between sectoral approaches and strategies e.g. the tension between
an economic development strategy and an environmental strategy
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Reconciling
these tensions at the earliest management stages
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Providing
a rigorously assessed sustainability basis to strategies and plans, where EU or
national resourcing is requested to sustain the
delivery process - a test of growing significance in the distribution of
structural funds - (i.e. enforcing the sustainability approach where it has
most impact - monies!)
Cumulative impact Assessment
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scale
and timeframe are important
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methods:
Checklists, indicator-based trend analysis, overlay analysis, carrying capacity
analysis
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CIA
could be part of the SEA process
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Barriers: lack of knowledge, tools,
resources
Recommendations:
- CIA
should be part of the national guidance on EIA/SEA
- The Commission
should fund guidance and good practice studies
- EIA and
SEA directives could be amended to take into account CIA
- More
emphasis on scoping phase of impact assessments—spatial boundaries of impacts
do not follow the administrative borders of planning jurisdiction
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Regional information systems are needed
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Follow-up studies on real impacts in order to improve prediction and assessment
techniques.
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