TEHRAN - Tehran Municipality has decided to apply Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) to the capital’s development plans for the first time in the country, Mehr reported on Saturday.

SEA is a systematic decision support process, aiming to ensure that environmental and possibly other sustainability aspects are considered effectively in policy, plan and program making.

Effective SEA works within a structured and tiered decision framework, aiming to support more effective and efficient decision-making for sustainable development and improved governance by providing for a substantive focus regarding questions, issues and alternatives to be considered in policy, plan and program (PPP) making.

SEA should ensure that plans and programs take into consideration the environmental effects they cause. 

Referring to the Municipality's plans to achieve sustainability in the capital, Amir Hossein Jafari Varamini, director for environment and sustainable development at Tehran Municipality, said

“Our goals and policies are in line with consideration of environmental impact assessment in selection, implementation, management and evaluation of urban developmental strategies.”

“To improve the effectiveness of environmental impact assessment in civil engineering, infrastructure projects and development plans, we decided to conduct strategic environmental assessment on all the plans in collaboration with the Tehran Urban Research and Planning Center, this year,” he explained.

He went on to say that the purpose of SEA studies is to determine the pathology of the existing plans and regulations, integrating environmental considerations in implementation of development plans, and assessing long-term and short-term, direct and indirect consequences of them. 

He expressed hope that by implementing SEA studies in Tehran metropolis, urban development to be directed towards sustainability and consequently, sustainable development indices including economic, social and environmental dimensions to be improved. 

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