A conceptual basis and methodological framework for regional strategic environmental assessment (R-SEA)

The need to better assess and manage the cumulative effects of human development is well recognized; however, the practice of cumulative effects assessment has been constrained by the current project-based approach. Further, the broader regional and strategic frameworks designed to ensure a more proactive and futures-oriented cumulative effects assessment have, ironically, remained divorced from current practice and from each other. In response, in 2008, the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment and various federal and provincial agencies identified the notion of ‘regional strategic environmental assessment’ as a means to integrate the current silos of environmental assessment in Canada and improve the overall practice of cumulative effects assessment. In this paper we report on the ongoing initiative to advance regional strategic environmental assessment, and present a conceptual basis and methodological framework for its development and application.