ESPON and Territorial Impact Assessment (EATIA)

Gödöllő, 22 June 2011

Thomas B Fischer and Tom Gore, University of Liverpool

Background

• EU policies/directives (including those on energy) can have differing impacts on different parts of the EU territory that can easily be overlooked. These can include those on spatial usage, governance or on wider environmental, social and economic aspects, and can be both, positive and negative.

• Since 2003, the EC has undertaken impact assessment (IA) of most of its policy/directive proposals, but making reliable predictions at this level of decision-making is notoriously difficult, particularly as impacts normally vary quite substantially across Europe and may depend in particular on the unique characteristics of a specific region or locality.

• TIA is an ex-ante assessment instrument for identifying and evaluating impacts of EU policies/directives. To date, TIA efforts have been on devising technical models predicting impacts of policies on ‘space’; this project broadens the scope of possible applications of TIA to consider more participatory assessment processes for involving various other levels (national, regional and local) in TIA of EU policies/directives.

• .

Slide 1

TIA development criteria EATIA seeks to support and build from existing work on TIA (TEQUILA, TIPTAP, ARTS...) to develop a ‘policy maker friendly’ approach:

1. An ex-ante assessment tool applicable within the preparation (and transposition) process of EU directives and possibly other policy;

2. Embedded at the Member State level, enabling policy-makers and practitioners to anticipate EU policy impacts and so to influence those policies (integrated with eg [regulatory] impact assessment);

3. Focus on impacts at national, regional [and local] levels; stakeholders are ministries responsible for spatial planning in the UK, Portugal and Slovenia (project partners are universities of Liverpool, Lisbon, Bratislava and Delft);

4. The approach of the project is to develop an instrument which is both, simple and flexible (‘policy maker friendly’) and which does not lead to delays in policy making due to heavy data requirements;

5. Should not introduce new formal assessment obligations as in e.g. EIA and SEA.

Essentially, a tool that can help ensure that EU policy making (including in the energy field) is sensitive to the spatial dimension – impacts often differ depending on where they take place

Slide 1.25

Scientific ApproachScope of integrated assessment methodologies

Technical (Expert-based)

Modernist Expert Rational Planning Opinions

Traditions (2) (4)

Quantitative Qualitative Drawing upon science Drawing upon / economics social science (3) (1) Participative Post Modernist

Modelling Consensus/Communicative Exercises Planning Traditions

Participatory (Expert-facilitated)

Source: adapted from Kidd and Fischer, 2007

Main focus of TIA research to date

Scope of TIA research through project

Slide 1.5

The TIA framework / how to do it…

• Three main aspects of TIA framework• Governance• Methods• Process

• Methodological (+ governance aspects)• Screening matrix (eg national body allocating draft directives to gov dpmts)• Scoping matrix (eg government department)• Assessment matrix (eg regional or local administration)

Methodological

Table 1: Draft screening checklist

Common criteria Potential Impact: Yes (√)No (X)

Uncertain (?)

Comments (nature of impact e.g. magnitude, positive, negative, short term, long term...)

Air quality

Soil quality

Biodiversity

Natural hazard risk

.....

•Screening

Slide 1.75

How to do it…Table 2: Draft scoping checklist

Policy elements Common criteria

Area typology (optional)

Impact? Yes (√)/no(X)/uncertain (?)

Comments (nature of impact e.g. magnitude, positive, negative, short term, long term...)

A - emergency planning Internal Emergency plans for response measures to be taken inside establishments have to be drawn up by the operator and to be supplied to the local authorities to enable them to draw up External Emergency Plans. These have to be regularly tested.

Air quality Urban √Rural ?Coastal √Northern √Etc ...

Soil quality Urban Rural Coastal Northern Etc ...

Natural hazard risk

Urban Rural Coastal Northern Etc ...

Biodiversity Urban Rural Coastal Northern Etc ...

etc ..... Urban Rural Coastal Northern Etc ...

B - land use planning ....

As above.......

Table 3: Draft assessment matrix template

1. Hazard risk 2. Soil quality

Impact Significance Rationale Impact Significance Rationale

Policy element A Policy element B Policy element CPolicy element DPolicy element ECumulative impact

• Testing the instrument, using various directives; • Habitats• Seveso II• Renewable Energy...

Slide 2