The Role of Strategic Environmental Assessment for Sustainability in Urban Systems Transformation

Abstract

Cities and urban systems transformations towards sustainability are paramount for global change. These transformations aim at systemic change necessary to tackle socio-ecological challenges, decision-making processes (e.g., policy, plans, programmes), and governance issues, in urban systems. To advance policies and planning for urban transformation is necessary to understand the type of capacity that enables the desirable change. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is an environmental policy tool with the potential to help this transformation towards urban sustainability. This chapter explores how SEA contributes to the enhancement of urban systems transformations capacity. Specifically, this chapter examines how an SEA for Sustainability place-based conceptual framework is linked with urban transformations’ scholarship and how SEA can contribute to urban transformations capacity towards sustainability. Findings show that SEA for Sustainability is aligned with three main themes that are focused on the urban transformations’ literature: governance and community empowerment; knowledge co-production and cooperation networks, resilience enhancement. Overall, this work lays the foundation for future research into examining the effects of SEA in urban systems transformation and exploring opportunities to enhance sustainability in these territories.