Year: 2024
This guidance note aims to improve the general public’s engagement in strategic environmental assessment (SEA) practice in Ireland. It outlines principles and makes recommendations to ensure that the public are meaningfully informed and consulted during SEA processes, and that any feedback is appropriately integrated into the SEA environmental report and the associated plan/programme. The guidance note is based on a review of international best practice; extensive consultation with SEA practitioners, plan-makers and public participation experts; and lessons learned from a good practice case study piloting novel approaches to public engagement in SEA consultation. These recommendations are transferable to other jurisdictions.
Year: 2024
This document forms part of submissions we make on Local Authority land-use plans undergoing strategic environmental assessments (SEA). It includes: key environmental recommendations to consider; information on recently published relevant EPA reports; links to useful environmental resources for Local Authorities carrying out SEA of land-use plans. It is updated regularly and was last updated on 14 March 2024.
Year: 2024
The EPA, in association with the other SEA environmental authorities, carried out a review of the progress made to date in the delivery of the various actions and recommendations in the SEA Action Plan 2021-2025.
Year: 2024
We have compiled this 'pack' to help planning authorities when carrying out strategic environmental assessments (SEAs). It is based on our experience to date, as a statutory SEA Environmental Authority under the SEA Regulations. It takes account of current 'best' practice in the SEA process. We update this pack regularly and we also refer to it during SEA Scoping consultations. It has been last updated in January 2024.
Year: 2023
This document aims to provide guidance and ideas on how to take landscape considerations into account when carrying out strategic environmental assessments (SEA) of plans and programmes in Ireland.
Year: 2023
This guidance note aims to provide guidance and ideas on how to carry out strategic environmental assessments (SEA) of tourism sectoral plans and programmes in Ireland.
Year: 2023
This report is an update of the previous stand-alone guidance document on SEA Statements and monitoring, prepared as part of the EPA-funded project Second Review of SEA Effectiveness in Ireland (González et al., 2020). It is specific to the Irish context but has wider international applicability. The monitoring recommendations include guidance on indicators to facilitate a more consistent and coherent approach at this SEA stage. The updates relate to clarifying some SEA monitoring requirements and to acknowledge the published revised national SEA Guidelines and the Development Plan Guidelines for Planning authorities, both published by the DHLGH in 2022.
Year: 2022
This guidance note aims to provide good practice guidance and ideas on how to carry out strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of water sector plans in Ireland.
EPA Spatial Data Inventory, July 2022
Year: 2022
This inventory of spatial information sources can be used to help in preparing SEA Environmental Reports and the associated environmental assessments with up to date environmental information. Data sources/links include air quality, climate, biodiversity, flora, fauna, geology, soils, hydrology and water quality. This inventory was last updated in July 2023 and may not be exhaustive. (See Disclaimer below for terms of use).
Year: 2021
Good Practice Guidance for Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Screening, which provides specific stand-alone guidance to assist plan/programme makers and SEA practitioners. The Guidance Note is focused primarily on plans/programmes in the non-land use sector in Ireland. It includes an elaboration of the steps needed for screening, the legislative landscape underpinning SEA screening, and step-by-step process and templates to assist in preparing the required documentation.
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Year: 2021
Year: 2021
This note provides good practice guidance on how to carry out strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of energy strategies/plans. It does not constitute statutory guidance and is intended to promote a good practice approach to the application of SEA in the energy sector.
Year: 2021
Through the National SEA Forum the SEA statutory environmental authorities in Ireland have jointly developed an SEA Action Plan to implement the key priority recommendations of the second SEA Effectiveness Review. The implementation of this Action Plan will be dependent on a shared responsibility in delivering the key priority recommendations.
Year: 2021
The EPA, in association with the other SEA environmental authorities, carried out a review of the progress made to date in the delivery of the various actions and recommendations in the 'SEA Effectiveness Review in Ireland Action Plan 2018–2020'. This Progress Update summarises the findings of this review.
Year: 2020
This document provides a summary of the second SEA Effectiveness Review training event, held in Portlaoise on the 3rd March 2020. It captures some of the knowledge of the participants and some of the learning outcomes from the event, to assist further shared learning.
Year: 2020
Cumulative effects result from a combination of individual effects on a receptor. They can occur as a result of plans, programmes, projects and other actions in the past, present and the reasonably foreseeable future. They can result from impacts that may be individually insignificant, but collectively significant. Cumulative effects assessment (CEA) is the process of identifying, assessing and mitigating cumulative effects.
Year: 2020
The key findings and recommendations from the second review of SEA effectiveness in Ireland are presented in this report. Recommendations are included to address issues relating to guidance, training & awareness, data collection, provision & sharing and governance and legislation.
Year: 2019
This document is a good practice note on how to practically incorporate climatic factors into plans and programmes, which come under the scope of the SEA Directive. It provides updated climate-related information and supersedes an earlier version published in 2015. It also acknowledges recent plan and programme-related developments that have occurred since then.
Year: 2019
The ESM Webtool is designed to facilitate multiple data interaction. Its purpose is to enable geographical exploration of environmental considerations onshore, and to combine relevant environmental datasets to produce environmental sensitivity maps in support of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA).
Year: 2019
The second review of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) effectiveness in Ireland, funded by the EPA, started on the 31st of March 2018. The project goal is to update the progress made in implementing SEA in Ireland and to guide future actions. This fourth and final Newsletter outlines some of the key research findings and outputs from the project.
