Planning and environmental assessments, limitations and potentials. The example of the transport system in a coastal urban agglomeration: Bahía de Cádiz (Andalucía, Spain)
Gustavo Alés Villarán1 , Agustín Antúnez Corrales1,2 , Salvador Espada Hinojosa1* , Carolina López Heras1, Antonio Luna del Barco1,3
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Abstract
The 1995 environmental protection law already included the environmental impact assessment of Infrastructures Plans that could alter the environment. After this law, the three main urban agglomerations in Andalucía (Sevilla, Cádiz and Málaga) have experienced an important effort in their transport system planning. Our aim with this work is show our experience with regard to the planning and the environmental assessment of one of them: Bahia de Cadiz. Its coastal nature provides the originated environmental conflict of an especial intensity together with a great potential of improvement. In order to characterise and understand the overlapping between the human transport net and the environment, two methods have been applied in the study of the Inter-modal Transport System Plan for 2007 formulated in 1995: 1) The development of environmental quantitative indicators for different scenarios of public transport use/private transport use rate. 2) The formulation of a matrix of qualitative impacts. These methods have provided us with tools to assess impacts and produce and select alternatives in the frame of a proactive approach. The review of the processes of the planning and the assessment, once the final year considered in the plan 2007 has passed, together with the obtained achievements, are the main purposes of this communication. Part of the proposals of the plan, such as the creation of metropolitan bodies for transport management or the construction of infrastructures, has been implemented during this time. This represents obvious improvements related to the achievements of particular goals, although the limited use of the strategic planning has produced the lack of synergic options for improvements or even antagonistic effects that weakens the general goals. Under the lack of a holistic strategy, the pressure produced on the social and physical environment due to the transport system, leads to the reproduction of obsolete patterns aimed at the constructions of infrastructure mainly for cars, lacks the treatment of mobility management, creation of proximity, environmental sensibility, social participation in the decision making. In an area like the coastal zone of Andalucía, where “hyper-developmentalism” has dominated the political action for the last 20 years, both planning and environmental assessment are affected by the existing barrier between the public performances and the "public" as defined by S.E.A. Directive. The public, associations, organizations or groups have had difficulties to actually take part in the public decision making although all plans and policies consider social participation as the cue for the sustainability. The opening to prolific social contributions and the comparison of methods and points of view between managers and the rest of our society reveal a potential in order to solve the conflict between environment conservation and development in coastal areas. The empowerment of the people can be achieved by means of including them in the real processes of participation, in the design and surveillance of the planning. While the public does not take part in this constructive intellectual effort, at least not in our low latitudes, both planning and environmental assessment regulations will simply remain a decoratively filled paper.
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1 I.S.M.A. - Iniciativas de Sostenibilidad, Medioambiente y Autogestión.
2 Facultad de Ciencias. Universidad de Málaga.
3 Facultad de Ciencias del Mar y Ambientales. Universidad de Cádiz.
*Adress for correspondence: Glorieta de la Cortadora Edificio Alfa 8ºB 11011Cádiz (España). Email: salvador.espada @ gmail.com
http://docs.exdat.com/docs/index-248602.html#8163060
Gustavo Alés Villarán1 , Agustín Antúnez Corrales1,2 , Salvador Espada Hinojosa1* , Carolina López Heras1, Antonio Luna del Barco1,3
^
Abstract
The 1995 environmental protection law already included the environmental impact assessment of Infrastructures Plans that could alter the environment. After this law, the three main urban agglomerations in Andalucía (Sevilla, Cádiz and Málaga) have experienced an important effort in their transport system planning. Our aim with this work is show our experience with regard to the planning and the environmental assessment of one of them: Bahia de Cadiz. Its coastal nature provides the originated environmental conflict of an especial intensity together with a great potential of improvement. In order to characterise and understand the overlapping between the human transport net and the environment, two methods have been applied in the study of the Inter-modal Transport System Plan for 2007 formulated in 1995: 1) The development of environmental quantitative indicators for different scenarios of public transport use/private transport use rate. 2) The formulation of a matrix of qualitative impacts. These methods have provided us with tools to assess impacts and produce and select alternatives in the frame of a proactive approach. The review of the processes of the planning and the assessment, once the final year considered in the plan 2007 has passed, together with the obtained achievements, are the main purposes of this communication. Part of the proposals of the plan, such as the creation of metropolitan bodies for transport management or the construction of infrastructures, has been implemented during this time. This represents obvious improvements related to the achievements of particular goals, although the limited use of the strategic planning has produced the lack of synergic options for improvements or even antagonistic effects that weakens the general goals. Under the lack of a holistic strategy, the pressure produced on the social and physical environment due to the transport system, leads to the reproduction of obsolete patterns aimed at the constructions of infrastructure mainly for cars, lacks the treatment of mobility management, creation of proximity, environmental sensibility, social participation in the decision making. In an area like the coastal zone of Andalucía, where “hyper-developmentalism” has dominated the political action for the last 20 years, both planning and environmental assessment are affected by the existing barrier between the public performances and the "public" as defined by S.E.A. Directive. The public, associations, organizations or groups have had difficulties to actually take part in the public decision making although all plans and policies consider social participation as the cue for the sustainability. The opening to prolific social contributions and the comparison of methods and points of view between managers and the rest of our society reveal a potential in order to solve the conflict between environment conservation and development in coastal areas. The empowerment of the people can be achieved by means of including them in the real processes of participation, in the design and surveillance of the planning. While the public does not take part in this constructive intellectual effort, at least not in our low latitudes, both planning and environmental assessment regulations will simply remain a decoratively filled paper.
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1 I.S.M.A. - Iniciativas de Sostenibilidad, Medioambiente y Autogestión.
2 Facultad de Ciencias. Universidad de Málaga.
3 Facultad de Ciencias del Mar y Ambientales. Universidad de Cádiz.
*Adress for correspondence: Glorieta de la Cortadora Edificio Alfa 8ºB 11011Cádiz (España). Email: salvador.espada @ gmail.com
http://docs.exdat.com/docs/index-248602.html#8163060
