Perpustakaan Digital ITB

Abstract: Currently sustainable transport development planning in Indonesia hasmerely taken into account environmental assessment at individual project level, while transport developments with its services have contributed on cumulative and synergistic impacts and also influenced the degradation of quality of life as well as other spatial impacts. It indicates that current environmental assessment (EIA) is deemed often too late in the decision-making process. EIA mainly react to development proposals rather than anticipate them. As a result, EIA has failed to provide environmental sustainability assurance. Thus, the limitation and failure of EIA lead to the need of assessing environmental effects at strategic level (SEA). SEA can be seen as a sustainable development tool for enhancing the effectiveness of EIA at policy, plan and program levels. SEA could give opportunities to achieve sustainable development through enabling more room for determining alternatives and giving opportunities to analyze cumulative and synergistic effects of development plans such as transport plans. Besides, in relation to decentralization, SEA can help linking horizontal and vertical authorities especially in taking into account environmental objectives and alternatives of transport development. Since Indonesian government has no experience and lack of expertise on SEA practice, learning from an experienced country is one of the ways to the effectiveness of SEA implementation for transport plans. The effectiveness of SEA implementation is influenced by several preconditions and facilitating factors. Those are political will, integration and timing, tiering, legal provision, information provided and networking/participation. Thus, the main focus of this research is exploring those preconditions and factors of SEA implementation both in the UK and in Indonesia condition. Considering those preconditions, SEA for transport plans in Indonesia could be realistic to be implemented. The results of this research consist of 2 findings. First, it explored the possibility of SEA for transport planning in Indonesia through creating an instrument/institution providing integrated transport appraisal; building coordinated-initiative which assembles road infrastructure planning and mobility planning; enhancing the role of EIMA at more strategic levels; and building good consultation mechanism by means of enhancing the role of public involvement of existing EIA to be more strategic. Second, this study built Strategic Environmental Management Plan (SEMP) to link the SEA implementation above with EIA for transport projects. SEMP as a preliminary study for defining road projects may strengthen the function of SEA and EIA through linking between them in achieving sustainable transport development. SEMP should loop back problem definition from project planning to strategic transport decision vice versa. SEMP with transport project definition could give environmental information of transport development for subsequent environmental assessment at project level (EIA). Besides, SEA and EIA with their linkage can assist environmental management in decentralized-transport development among different planning levels. To provide necessary support for initiating and carrying out the SEA implementation above, encouraging the recognition of the need of SEA from elected decision makers, politician and public is important for Indonesia who has no SEA experience (political will). Another potential factor is amending current Environmental Management Act which has arranged environmental assessment at a more strategic level as a good precondition.