Investigating the Concept of Strategic Environmental Assessment and its Implementation Methods

The strategic environmental assessment has been suggested and developed given the shortage of environmental impacts assessment in considering environmental policies at strategic levels, especially in the process of policy-making and planning. In fact, the strategic environmental assessment has attracted the attention of planners because it is missioned with introducing environmental considerations to the early stages of decision-making on policies, programs and projects. Also, the strategic environmental assessment, is one of the acceptable methods for achieving the goals of sustainable development in which environmental impacts of policies, programs and projects on the development are evaluated. Therefore, considering importance of the strategic environmental assessment, this paper which is based on library and documental research, tries to investigate the concept and application of strategic environmental assessment. The two methods of SWOT matrix and quantitative strategic planning matrix (QSPM), which are among the effective methods for implementing the strategic environmental assessment are also reviewed.